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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward pattern. It often serves as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround wins the award. However, it sparks an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or simply the greatest upset.

But this year's field is fundamentally different. The group of candidates is remarkably talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions declining and recent underperformers ascending together. During an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in this chaotic and entertaining season, he's up against several other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense built solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to create magic from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the immense hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this isn't a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which wasn't a given following his early public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of peers.

Still