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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It often functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who orchestrated the largest resurgence receives the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or just the most shocking upset.

Yet this year's race is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners fading and longtime strugglers rising together. Under an typical season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's facing five other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the ideal vote should look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical year!

Where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However he falls short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which was not a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an early hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

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