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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It frequently functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the biggest turnaround is handed the prize. However, it creates an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or merely the most shocking surprise.

Yet the latest field is profoundly different. The list of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners falling away and longtime strugglers ascending collectively. Under an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's up against multiple other elite coaches.

Here is how the ideal vote could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to create big plays from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost each decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon 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 two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current is not a typical season!

The area where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

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

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

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still