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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward formula. It frequently acts as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the largest turnaround is handed the award. In reality, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or simply the most shocking upset.

Yet this year's competition is distinctly different. The group of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners falling away and recent also-rans ascending together. In an normal year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's up against several other elite coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to display his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. But the current is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and experience, he bet on newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year case has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still