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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the largest resurgence is handed the prize. However, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

Yet the current race is fundamentally unique. The group of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division champions falling away and recent strugglers rising in unison. Under an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a wild and fun season, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to spin magic from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each decision – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the immense expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a normal campaign!

The area where his case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. However he comes up short here.

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

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still