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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently serves as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the biggest turnaround wins the award. However, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or merely the greatest shock.

However this year's field is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference champions fading and longtime underperformers improving together. During an normal season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and fun year, he's up against several other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost each gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the building with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a given following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

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

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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