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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward formula. It often serves as a kind of apology. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic improvement receives the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or simply the most shocking upset.

Yet this year's field is fundamentally unique. The pool of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions fading and recent also-rans ascending together. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the projected vote could look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right system, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost each 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 hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current isn't a normal year!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. However he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just one spot ahead of peers.

Still