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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It frequently acts as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence receives the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or just the biggest surprise.

But the current race is distinctly different. The pool of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners declining and recent strugglers ascending in unison. In an ordinary year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to display his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, he would be the runaway choice. Yet the current isn't a normal season!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained success. But Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

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

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only one place ahead of other QBs.

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