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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward formula. It commonly functions as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who orchestrated the largest resurgence is handed the prize. However, it sparks an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or merely the most shocking shock.

Yet the current field is profoundly different. The group of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference champions falling away and recent also-rans rising together. In an typical season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a wild and fun year, he's competing with five other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every decision – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the building with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical year, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a normal year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. However Johnson comes up short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

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