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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a kind of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence wins the prize. However, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or simply the biggest upset.

Yet the current race is profoundly different. The list of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners falling away and recent underperformers improving in unison. Under an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's facing five other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the ideal ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. However he falls just short here.

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

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still