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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward formula. It frequently acts as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence wins the award. In reality, it sparks an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or just the biggest surprise.

But the latest competition is profoundly unique. The pool of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions falling away and recent underperformers ascending collectively. During an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a turbulent and thrilling season, he's facing five other elite candidates.

Here is how the ideal ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. Under Johnson, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open targets consistently. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, he would be the runaway favorite. But this isn't a normal year!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, 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 an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a given following his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

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