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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple formula. It often acts as a type of apology. Sorry we misjudged your team in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the biggest improvement receives the award. In practice, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or merely the biggest shock.

Yet the latest competition is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions fading and longtime strugglers improving together. Under an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and fun year, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote could be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to spin big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the building with the immense hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

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

The area where his case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously fickle. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Coach of the Year case has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still