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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple formula. It often serves as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the biggest improvement receives the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or simply the biggest upset.

Yet the latest field is profoundly different. The list of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions fading and longtime underperformers rising together. During an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's up against five other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to create big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical year, he would be the runaway choice. Yet this is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. However Johnson comes up just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

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

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and all elements together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

Every Strong of the Year argument has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still