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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a simple formula. It often acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your squad in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who oversaw the largest turnaround receives the prize. However, it sparks an annual debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or just the most shocking shock.

Yet this year's competition is distinctly unique. The group of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent division champions fading and recent underperformers improving collectively. In an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with five other elite candidates.

Below is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to create magic from nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this isn't a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However Johnson comes up short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has nailed the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year case has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still