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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple formula. It frequently acts as a kind of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the largest improvement receives the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or just the greatest shock.

Yet this year's competition is distinctly different. The pool of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions declining and recent underperformers improving together. During an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and thrilling year, he's facing five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet this isn't a normal season!

Where his case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But Johnson falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still