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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple formula. It commonly serves as a form of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest resurgence wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or simply the greatest upset.

Yet the current race is profoundly unique. The group of candidates is remarkably talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and longtime underperformers improving in unison. In an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and fun season, he's competing with several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot should be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary season, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current isn't a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list 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 bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. However Johnson falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the leadership stuff, which was not a given following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. From the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still