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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly acts as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the largest resurgence wins the prize. In practice, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or simply the most shocking shock.

Yet the current race is distinctly unique. The pool of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners falling away and longtime also-rans improving in unison. In an typical season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this wild and fun year, he's competing with several other elite candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to create magic from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet this isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. However Johnson falls short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still