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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward formula. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the largest resurgence is handed the prize. However, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or simply the biggest surprise.

Yet the current field is fundamentally unique. The pool of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent division champions declining and recent also-rans improving collectively. During an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this wild and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected vote ought to shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to conjure magic from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the level of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

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

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. But he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

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

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year argument has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still