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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward formula. It often serves as a form of apology. Sorry we misjudged your team in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the most dramatic resurgence wins the prize. However, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or merely the greatest shock.

However this year's competition is profoundly unique. The group of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions falling away and recent strugglers rising in unison. Under an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this wild and thrilling season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. But this is not a typical year!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

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

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still