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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple formula. It commonly serves as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the most dramatic improvement wins the award. However, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or just the most shocking shock.

Yet the latest field is fundamentally different. The group of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division champions falling away and longtime also-rans improving collectively. During an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and thrilling season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the level of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current isn't a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

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