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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple formula. It frequently functions as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your franchise in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the biggest turnaround wins the award. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or simply the most shocking surprise.

But the current competition is distinctly unique. The list of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions declining and recent underperformers improving together. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in this chaotic and entertaining season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic from nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a given following his initial public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Every Coach of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still