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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple pattern. It often functions as a form of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the largest resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or merely the greatest shock.

Yet the current field is fundamentally unique. The list of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division champions fading and recent also-rans rising collectively. Under an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling season, he's facing several other elite coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his special ability. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to conjure big plays from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current is not a typical season!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still