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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It often functions as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the largest improvement is handed the award. However, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the greatest upset.

Yet the latest race is profoundly different. The group of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division winners declining and recent strugglers rising together. Under an typical year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's facing multiple other outstanding candidates.

This is how the ideal ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that creates wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where his case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

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