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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It frequently acts as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest turnaround is handed the award. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or just the most shocking upset.

Yet the current race is profoundly different. The list of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent division winners declining and recent strugglers improving in unison. Under an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a wild and entertaining season, he's facing several other elite candidates.

This is how the ideal ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually every decision – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But the current is not a normal year!

The area where his case runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. However he comes up just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

After an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC'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 talent.

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

Every Coach of the Year case has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

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