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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly serves as a form of apology. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement is handed the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or simply the most shocking surprise.

However the latest race is profoundly different. The list of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division winners falling away and recent underperformers rising in unison. In an ordinary season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's competing with several other elite candidates.

This is how the ideal ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded 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 season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But this is not a normal campaign!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, 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 moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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