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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward formula. It often acts as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest turnaround is handed the award. However, it sparks an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or just the biggest surprise.

But the current race is fundamentally different. The list of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference winners fading and longtime strugglers ascending collectively. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's facing five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a typical season!

Where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However he comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a given after his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching blend of youth and experience, he bet on first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still