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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. However, it sparks an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

Yet the current race is distinctly different. The pool of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners falling away and recent underperformers rising in unison. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this turbulent and thrilling season, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost each decision – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the building with the kind of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. Yet this is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance 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 transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a guarantee following his initial public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

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

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

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