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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement is handed the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or merely the most shocking upset.

But this year's competition is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference winners declining and longtime strugglers ascending in unison. During an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's competing with multiple other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right system, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that frees wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to conjure magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the level of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But the current is not a normal season!

The area where his case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But he comes up just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still