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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple pattern. It often functions as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the largest improvement is handed the award. However, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or simply the greatest upset.

However the current competition is fundamentally unique. The list of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference winners falling away and longtime also-rans ascending collectively. In an ordinary season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this chaotic and fun year, he's up against several other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his special ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to create magic from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every bet – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this isn't a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson falls short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a given after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback 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 chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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