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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It often functions as a kind of apology. We regret we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround is handed the prize. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or simply the biggest shock.

But the latest field is fundamentally different. The list of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent division winners declining and recent strugglers rising in unison. Under an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing five other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the building with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the runaway choice. Yet the current isn't a normal year!

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody 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 defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However Johnson falls short here.

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

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, he trusted newbies. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still