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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the largest turnaround is handed the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the biggest surprise.

However the current competition is profoundly unique. The list of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference champions declining and longtime also-rans rising together. During an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this wild and entertaining year, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his rare ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to create magic from nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

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

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However Johnson falls short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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