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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward formula. It commonly serves as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround receives the award. However, it creates an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or simply the most shocking upset.

Yet the current field is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions fading and longtime underperformers rising in unison. In an typical season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and fun season, he's facing multiple other elite candidates.

Here is how the ideal ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to create magic from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given following his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year case has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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