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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward formula. It commonly acts as a kind of apology. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who oversaw the largest turnaround receives the award. In reality, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or simply the biggest shock.

But the latest field is distinctly unique. The group of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and recent strugglers ascending collectively. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing five other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the ideal ballot should shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his rare talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the building with the immense hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical year!

Where his case runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. From the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still