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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward script. It commonly functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the biggest improvement wins the prize. However, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or merely the biggest shock.

Yet the latest field is fundamentally unique. The pool of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference champions falling away and longtime also-rans rising together. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in such a wild and entertaining year, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to display his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to create magic out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical year, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet this is not a normal season!

Where his case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However he falls short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul 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 leadership aspects, which wasn't a guarantee after his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still