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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward script. It often serves as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest resurgence is handed the award. However, it sparks an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

Yet the current race is distinctly unique. The group of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime underperformers rising together. During an ordinary season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this chaotic and fun year, he's up against multiple other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal season, he would be the clear-cut choice. But this is not a normal year!

Where his candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given after his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year case has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

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