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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple formula. It frequently acts as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic resurgence wins the award. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the most shocking surprise.

However the latest competition is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division champions falling away and recent underperformers rising in unison. During an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's facing five other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. But he falls just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year case has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still