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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct line: the skipper who oversaw the largest resurgence receives the award. However, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or merely the biggest surprise.

But the current field is distinctly different. The pool of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. During an typical season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's competing with several other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to create magic from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost every bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs a bit into trouble 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. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But Johnson falls short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

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

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars 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 everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still