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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward formula. It frequently serves as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest turnaround receives the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the greatest surprise.

However the current field is profoundly different. The pool of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference winners falling away and recent underperformers improving together. During an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this wild and thrilling season, he's up against multiple other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based 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 expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

In a normal season, he would be the runaway choice. But the current is not a normal campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. But Johnson comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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