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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who oversaw the biggest improvement is handed the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or simply the biggest upset.

However the current field is profoundly different. The pool of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference winners declining and longtime strugglers improving in unison. Under an typical season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in this wild and fun season, he's competing with five other elite candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack built solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every decision – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed 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 ordinary year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

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

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

Each Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still