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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward script. It often functions as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround wins the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or just the biggest upset.

But the current competition is distinctly unique. The pool of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and longtime underperformers improving collectively. Under an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in such a wild and entertaining season, he's facing multiple other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary season, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But he comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still