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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently functions as a type of apology. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the largest resurgence is handed the award. In reality, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or merely the greatest shock.

However the latest field is profoundly different. The list of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners falling away and longtime strugglers improving collectively. Under an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a wild and thrilling season, he's facing five other elite coaches.

Here is how the ideal vote could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost every bet – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

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

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. However he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Coach of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still