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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the largest turnaround receives the prize. However, it sparks an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or merely the biggest shock.

But the current competition is fundamentally unique. The list of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and longtime also-rans improving together. In an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this wild and fun year, he's facing five other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the ideal vote should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the building with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical year, he would be the overwhelming choice. Yet the current isn't a typical season!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an early strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still