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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple pattern. It often acts as a form of apology. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the most dramatic turnaround is handed the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or merely the most shocking upset.

Yet the latest race is profoundly different. The list of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division champions falling away and longtime underperformers improving together. During an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's up against five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the level of hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a typical season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where his case runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. However Johnson falls short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still