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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It commonly acts as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround is handed the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or just the greatest upset.

Yet the current race is distinctly unique. The pool of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division champions fading and recent underperformers rising collectively. During an normal year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this chaotic and fun year, he's up against five other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a normal year!

The area where his case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given after his initial public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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