The Way The Strange Season Shattered the Traditional NFL Coach of the Year Formula.

Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently functions as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround wins the award. In reality, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or simply the biggest upset.

Yet the latest competition is profoundly different. The list of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners declining and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a turbulent and fun season, he's competing with five other elite coaches.

Below is how the ideal ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet this isn't a typical year!

Where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still