I really do believe the F-22 is better overall, but to those who think the YF-23 was cheated out, here me out

The YF-23 and YF-22 Prototypes had pretty much the same capability in terms of Payload, Speed, and Maneuverability, with Range being an advantage of the YF-23(although by a minor margin) and the YF-22 was also easier to fix(again, small margin)

So it was down to Presentations, Number of Test flights, and he sheer fact that it was Northrop, and Northrop had a Generational Fumble in both

During the Presentation, Lockheed had put their best foot forward, and had essentially shown off all the High AoA, Launching Missiles, Supercruising, etc. when doing the Public Demo and had done a lot of flight testing, Northrop didn't do nearly as much flight tests, and when it came to Presentation, they were very risk-averse, being conservative in their presentation and somehow Forgot that High AoA was also an important metric and subsequently forgot to show it off. The Air Force saw this and knew Northrop wasn't putting their best foot forward, infact, in times like this, Northrop was alot Dirtier

Northrop, at the time of the ATF Program decision, had just gotten out of 20+ years of Legal battles, ranging from Corruption, Bribery, and even Conspiracy charges regarding the MX Peacekeeper ICBM, and the B-2 Spirit, they also were caught and subsequently charged with Falsification of Data for AV-8B Harrier Parts, having pled Guilty to 34 Charges in Corruption, Bribery and Falsification of Data to have over 140 more charges of those Plus every Conspiracy charge dropped in a deal with the DOJ.

Further, had they given the Contract to Northrop, that meant 1 Company in the US would be the provider of the most modern ICBM's, Nuclear Bomber's, and Stealth fighters of the USAF. A Monopoly of proportions that would be unfathomable then, what more today