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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly acts as a type of apology. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it sparks an annual debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or just the biggest shock.

But the current competition is fundamentally unique. The pool of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime underperformers improving collectively. In an typical season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this wild and fun season, he's facing five other exceptional candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the immense hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a typical season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this isn't a normal year!

Where his candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. However he falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still