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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple formula. It often acts as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your team in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the biggest turnaround receives the prize. However, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or simply the biggest shock.

Yet the latest competition is fundamentally different. The pool of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference champions falling away and recent also-rans rising collectively. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and fun season, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been given the chance to display his rare ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to create magic from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Almost each bet – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a ordinary season, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a typical season!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure 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 work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But he falls just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still