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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple formula. It frequently serves as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who orchestrated the biggest resurgence is handed the award. However, it creates an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or just the biggest surprise.

Yet this year's race is distinctly different. The group of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions falling away and longtime strugglers rising in unison. During an typical year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in such a wild and entertaining year, he's up against multiple other elite coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense built solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to create magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a normal year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained success. But he falls short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a guarantee following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year case has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still