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

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the largest improvement wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or simply the greatest shock.

But this year's field is distinctly different. The group of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners fading and longtime underperformers ascending together. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's facing several other outstanding candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to conjure big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the immense hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a typical year!

The area where his case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But he falls just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen 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, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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