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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It often acts as a type of apology. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the largest improvement is handed the prize. However, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or simply the greatest surprise.

However the current competition is distinctly different. The group of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division winners falling away and longtime strugglers ascending in unison. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a chaotic and fun season, he's competing with five other elite candidates.

Here is how the ideal ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to spin magic out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a typical year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a typical season!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

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

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still