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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It often acts as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the largest turnaround receives the award. In reality, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or merely the biggest shock.

Yet the latest race is profoundly different. The pool of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference winners falling away and longtime also-rans ascending collectively. Under an ordinary season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this wild and thrilling season, he's up against several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been given the chance to display 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 prolonged performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But the current isn't a typical season!

The area where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee after his early public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still