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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It frequently functions as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic resurgence wins the prize. However, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or just the most shocking upset.

But the latest competition is fundamentally different. The list of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners falling away and longtime strugglers rising together. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a chaotic and fun year, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to create magic from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

In a typical year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a normal year!

The area where his case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But he falls just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a rapid 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 spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. From the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still