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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a type of apology. We regret we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic improvement wins the prize. In practice, it creates an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or merely the most shocking shock.

But the latest field is fundamentally different. The pool of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions fading and recent strugglers ascending collectively. In an typical year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in this wild and thrilling year, he's facing several other elite candidates.

Here is how the ideal ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his special talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost each decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where his case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football 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 notably, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and experience, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still