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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It frequently serves as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence receives the award. In practice, it fuels an annual argument about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or merely the greatest shock.

However the latest field is profoundly different. The group of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions falling away and longtime strugglers ascending together. Under an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and entertaining year, he's facing several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the ideal vote ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative passing attack that frees wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create big plays from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical year, he would be the runaway choice. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just one place ahead of peers.

Still