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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward formula. It often acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence is handed the prize. However, it fuels an annual argument about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the greatest shock.

However the current field is fundamentally different. The pool of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent division winners declining and longtime also-rans ascending in unison. During an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with multiple other elite coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote ought to shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to create magic out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a typical season!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. 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 several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for sustained success. However he comes up short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has cooled off since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still