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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple formula. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the biggest improvement wins the prize. In reality, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or merely the greatest upset.

But the latest race is fundamentally different. The group of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference champions falling away and recent strugglers ascending in unison. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling season, he's competing with five other exceptional coaches.

This is how the hypothetical ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an attack built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every decision – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the level of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. But the current isn't a normal season!

Where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

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