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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct line: the skipper who oversaw the largest turnaround wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or merely the most shocking shock.

Yet the latest race is distinctly unique. The pool of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners falling away and recent strugglers improving collectively. Under an typical season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal vote ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure magic from nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet this is not a normal campaign!

Where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his career. 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 aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his initial public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed since that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still