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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It frequently functions as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the biggest improvement receives the prize. In reality, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or simply the most shocking surprise.

However the current field is fundamentally unique. The pool of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions falling away and longtime also-rans ascending in unison. Under an typical season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this wild and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other outstanding candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote should look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to display his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current isn't a normal year!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar spot 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 finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

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

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one place ahead of peers.

Still