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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly acts as a type of apology. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the biggest resurgence receives the prize. However, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or merely the greatest upset.

However the latest field is fundamentally unique. The pool of contenders is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions falling away and recent strugglers rising in unison. In an ordinary season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his special talent. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to create big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained success. However Johnson falls short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings 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 narrative has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still