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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your squad in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the largest resurgence wins the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or just the greatest surprise.

However the current field is distinctly different. The list of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference champions declining and longtime also-rans improving in unison. In an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with five other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his special talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to conjure magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet this is not a normal campaign!

Where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term success. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

Still