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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It often acts as a form of apology. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the biggest turnaround is handed the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or merely the greatest shock.

But this year's race is profoundly unique. The group of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions fading and longtime underperformers improving in unison. Under an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in this wild and entertaining year, he's up against five other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this is not a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which was not a guarantee after his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year argument has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still