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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It often acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your squad in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or just the most shocking shock.

But the latest competition is fundamentally different. The group of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent division winners fading and recent also-rans rising in unison. In an normal year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in this wild and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the ideal vote could look.

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

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to spin magic out of nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a typical season!

The area where his case runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for long-term success. But he comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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