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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It commonly serves as a type of apology. We regret we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround receives the prize. In practice, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or simply the most shocking surprise.

But this year's field is distinctly unique. The group of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners declining and longtime strugglers rising together. Under an ordinary season, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and fun season, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.

This is how the hypothetical ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually each decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the building with the level of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However he falls short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. From the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still