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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It often serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the biggest turnaround wins the award. However, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or just the greatest upset.

But the current competition is fundamentally different. The list of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners falling away and recent also-rans ascending collectively. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing several other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that frees wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the level of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

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

The area where his case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

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