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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It often acts as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround is handed the award. However, it sparks an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or simply the greatest upset.

But the latest field is profoundly different. The pool of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions falling away and recent also-rans improving together. In an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an attack built solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to create magic from nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a typical campaign!

Where his candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete 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 league in Expected Points Added per play.

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

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still