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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple formula. It commonly acts as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround is handed the award. However, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or merely the biggest upset.

But this year's competition is distinctly different. The group of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning conference champions falling away and recent underperformers ascending collectively. In an normal year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a turbulent and fun year, he's competing with five other elite coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained performance. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the building with the level of hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a normal year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for long-term success. But he comes up short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still