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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It often acts as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the largest improvement wins the award. However, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or merely the biggest shock.

However this year's competition is profoundly unique. The pool of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent division winners fading and recent underperformers rising collectively. During an typical year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a wild and entertaining season, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the ideal ballot could shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open targets consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current is not a typical season!

Where his case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However he comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff mix of youth and experience, he hired newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still