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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple formula. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. In practice, it creates an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or simply the greatest shock.

Yet the latest competition is fundamentally different. The list of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners falling away and recent also-rans improving together. Under an normal season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and entertaining season, he's facing five other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the ideal ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a typical season!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a given after his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still