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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It often serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your team in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence is handed the award. However, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or just the most shocking surprise.

However the latest competition is distinctly different. The group of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division winners declining and recent also-rans improving collectively. During an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

This is how the ideal ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to create magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this 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 takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee after his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

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

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

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

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