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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple pattern. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the largest improvement receives the prize. In practice, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or just the most shocking upset.

However this year's competition is fundamentally unique. The group of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners falling away and recent strugglers improving together. During an normal year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in such a turbulent and fun season, he's facing several other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost each decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But the current isn't a typical year!

Where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty following his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching blend of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an early strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback caused the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

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