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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It often serves as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the largest improvement is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or merely the biggest shock.

But this year's competition is profoundly different. The list of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division winners fading and longtime underperformers improving in unison. Under an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal vote should shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his special ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to create magic from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. But 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 offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a normal campaign!

Where his case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. However he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a guarantee after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

After an initial hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year argument has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

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