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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It frequently serves as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the largest improvement wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or just the greatest upset.

However this year's race is distinctly unique. The group of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners falling away and recent strugglers rising in unison. During an typical year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in such a wild and fun year, he's up against multiple other outstanding coaches.

This is how the hypothetical vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his rare talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this isn't a normal year!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But he falls short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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