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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It often acts as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest turnaround receives the award. In practice, it sparks an annual argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or merely the most shocking upset.

Yet this year's competition is profoundly unique. The group of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners declining and recent underperformers ascending together. In an typical year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and fun season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent performance. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to spin magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually each decision – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the immense pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

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

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Strong of the Year case has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed since that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still