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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple formula. It frequently serves as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement receives the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or merely the biggest upset.

Yet the current competition is profoundly unique. The list of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners fading and longtime underperformers ascending in unison. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and fun season, he's facing multiple other elite coaches.

Here is how the ideal vote should be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to create big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of pressure 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 zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. But this is not a normal year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still