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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple formula. It commonly functions as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the largest resurgence wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or simply the greatest surprise.

However this year's competition is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference champions declining and longtime also-rans improving in unison. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.

This is how the ideal vote should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create magic out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a normal season!

Where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But he falls short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still