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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It often acts as a type of apology. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct line: the coach who oversaw the largest resurgence is handed the award. In reality, it sparks an annual argument about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or simply the greatest upset.

Yet the latest competition is fundamentally different. The pool of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions declining and longtime underperformers ascending in unison. During an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this chaotic and entertaining season, he's facing five other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization 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 head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current isn't a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. However he falls short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

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