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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward formula. It frequently functions as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence is handed the award. In practice, it creates an annual debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or merely the biggest shock.

Yet this year's race is distinctly unique. The list of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions declining and recent strugglers improving together. During an normal year, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in such a turbulent and thrilling season, he's competing with several other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to create big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each decision – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a normal season, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current is not a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But he falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a given after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off 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