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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It frequently functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the most dramatic improvement wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or merely the biggest surprise.

Yet the latest competition is profoundly different. The group of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division champions declining and longtime strugglers rising in unison. In an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this wild and thrilling season, he's competing with several other outstanding coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot should be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to create big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each decision – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But this is not a typical season!

The area where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a guarantee after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still