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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward formula. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your team in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the biggest improvement wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or just the most shocking shock.

However the latest field is distinctly different. The list of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with recent division winners fading and recent also-rans improving collectively. Under an typical season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and fun season, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the building with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

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

Where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But he falls just short here.

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

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still