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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple formula. It commonly serves as a form of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the largest resurgence wins the prize. However, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or merely the greatest upset.

However the current race is distinctly unique. The pool of contenders is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions falling away and longtime underperformers ascending together. Under an normal season, a coach leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in this turbulent and fun year, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his special talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current isn't a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee after his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference'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 maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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