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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple formula. It often serves as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence wins the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or just the most shocking shock.

But the latest competition is distinctly unique. The pool of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners declining and recent strugglers ascending collectively. In an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling season, he's competing with five other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the building with the immense expectations he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a typical year!

Where his case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year case has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has regressed after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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