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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly functions as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the largest turnaround wins the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the most shocking shock.

However this year's competition is profoundly different. The list of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners fading and longtime underperformers ascending together. Under an normal year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a wild and entertaining year, he's up against several other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical vote should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. But the current is not a normal season!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a given after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect staff mix of youth and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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