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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple formula. It commonly functions as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your squad in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the largest resurgence wins the award. In reality, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or merely the biggest surprise.

Yet the latest competition is distinctly unique. The list of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions falling away and recent underperformers ascending in unison. In an normal year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's facing multiple other elite coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this isn't a normal season!

Where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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