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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It frequently acts as a type of apology. Sorry we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who orchestrated the biggest resurgence is handed the award. In practice, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or merely the biggest upset.

But this year's race is distinctly unique. The list of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning division winners falling away and recent also-rans ascending together. During an normal season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling season, he's up against several other elite coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot should look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the runaway choice. But this isn't a typical season!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. However he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the season in October. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still