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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It commonly functions as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the biggest improvement is handed the prize. However, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or merely the most shocking shock.

Yet the latest field is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners falling away and recent strugglers improving collectively. Under an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in this wild and thrilling season, he's facing several other elite candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually each decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty following his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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