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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward formula. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the most dramatic resurgence is handed the award. In practice, it creates an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or merely the most shocking shock.

Yet this year's competition is fundamentally different. The pool of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions fading and recent also-rans improving collectively. During an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and entertaining season, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote should shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his special talent. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to conjure magic from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer 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 coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this isn't a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty after his initial public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, he bet on newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still