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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It frequently acts as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the largest turnaround is handed the award. However, it sparks an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or just the biggest surprise.

However this year's field is profoundly unique. The list of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners fading and recent strugglers improving in unison. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and fun year, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to create magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet this is not a typical season!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won seven 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 roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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