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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It frequently acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the largest improvement is handed the award. However, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or merely the greatest surprise.

Yet the latest race is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners fading and recent also-rans ascending collectively. During an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a turbulent and fun year, he's competing with multiple other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a normal season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a normal campaign!

Where his case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

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

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

Following an initial hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

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