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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It often functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the biggest resurgence wins the prize. However, it creates an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or simply the greatest surprise.

Yet this year's race is fundamentally unique. The pool of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division winners fading and longtime also-rans ascending in unison. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a wild and thrilling season, he's up against multiple other elite coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to create magic from nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this isn't a normal campaign!

Where his case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term success. But he comes up short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, Coen hired newbies. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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