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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward formula. It commonly serves as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround wins the award. However, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or simply the most shocking surprise.

But this year's competition is fundamentally unique. The list of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions falling away and recent strugglers ascending together. Under an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing five other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the projected vote ought to shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the level of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. Yet the current is not a typical season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term success. But he falls short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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