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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It often functions as a kind of apology. Sorry we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the most dramatic turnaround wins the prize. In reality, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or just the greatest surprise.

However the latest field is distinctly different. The group of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with recent division winners declining and recent also-rans rising together. In an typical season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling season, he's facing several other outstanding candidates.

This is how the projected ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical season!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he falls just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a guarantee after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. From the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

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

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

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