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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently serves as a type of apology. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement wins the award. In reality, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or merely the most shocking surprise.

But the latest field is profoundly unique. The pool of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions declining and longtime strugglers ascending collectively. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in this wild and entertaining season, he's facing multiple other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right system, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his special ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to create big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the immense pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

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

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. But Johnson falls short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence 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 Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. From the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year argument has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still