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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly acts as a kind of apology. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic improvement is handed the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or just the greatest shock.

However the latest race is profoundly different. The list of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and recent also-rans improving collectively. Under an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every decision – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this isn't a typical season!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

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