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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple pattern. It commonly functions as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest turnaround wins the award. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or simply the most shocking upset.

However this year's field is fundamentally unique. The pool of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent division champions declining and recent underperformers improving together. In an typical season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a wild and fun year, he's up against five other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the ideal vote should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than improvising. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of pressure Johnson 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. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But this is not a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

Still