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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently functions as a form of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround receives the prize. In practice, it sparks an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or merely the biggest shock.

Yet this year's competition is profoundly different. The group of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions fading and recent strugglers improving collectively. In an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's competing with several other elite coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot should be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open targets consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually each bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current is not a normal season!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. But he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still