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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple formula. It frequently acts as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence is handed the prize. However, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or just the biggest surprise.

Yet this year's competition is profoundly different. The list of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners falling away and recent also-rans ascending in unison. Under an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and entertaining year, he's competing with five other elite coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot ought to shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to create big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the level of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a normal year!

The area where his candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and experience, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an early strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

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