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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple pattern. It frequently functions as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the largest resurgence wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or merely the most shocking upset.

But this year's field is distinctly different. The group of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions declining and longtime also-rans rising together. Under an typical season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's competing with several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to create big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet this isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

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