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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple formula. It frequently serves as a kind of apology. Sorry we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the largest turnaround wins the award. However, it creates an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or merely the most shocking shock.

However the latest race is fundamentally different. The group of nominees is exceptionally deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime underperformers rising in unison. Under an typical year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this wild and entertaining year, he's facing several other elite coaches.

This is how the hypothetical vote ought to shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the level of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a typical year, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet this isn't a typical year!

The area where his case runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But he falls just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still