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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It commonly serves as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the largest improvement is handed the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or simply the greatest shock.

However the current competition is distinctly different. The list of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners falling away and recent underperformers rising together. Under an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and fun season, he's up against five other elite candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical vote could look.

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

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical campaign!

Where his case runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the off-field aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of peers.

Still