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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a kind of apology. We regret we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who engineered the largest improvement wins the award. However, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or simply the most shocking upset.

Yet the current race is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division champions falling away and longtime underperformers rising together. In an normal year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in this wild and entertaining year, he's facing multiple other elite candidates.

Here is how the ideal ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack built solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet the current is not a typical year!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still