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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic improvement is handed the award. In reality, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or simply the biggest shock.

Yet the current race is profoundly unique. The group of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division champions declining and longtime also-rans rising together. In an typical season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this turbulent and fun year, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually every bet – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a typical year!

The area where his case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However Johnson falls just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a given after his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year case has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

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