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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It often serves as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the most dramatic turnaround wins the prize. In reality, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or simply the biggest upset.

But the latest race is fundamentally different. The group of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference champions falling away and recent strugglers rising collectively. During an ordinary year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this turbulent and fun season, he's facing several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to create magic out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal season, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share 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 remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which wasn't a guarantee after his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

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