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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple formula. It often acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement receives the award. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or merely the most shocking surprise.

However this year's competition is profoundly unique. The group of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions falling away and recent strugglers improving together. During an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in this wild and fun season, he's competing with several other elite candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical vote ought to be structured.

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

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

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current is not a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. However he comes up short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field stuff, which wasn't a given after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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