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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple formula. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the largest improvement is handed the prize. In practice, it creates an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or just the greatest shock.

Yet this year's race is profoundly different. The list of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent division winners fading and recent underperformers rising together. During an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing five other outstanding coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With his guidance, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to create magic out of broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually each bet – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this isn't a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a given after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of peers.

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