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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It frequently functions as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the largest resurgence receives the prize. However, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or just the biggest surprise.

But the latest race is profoundly different. The pool of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners declining and recent underperformers improving in unison. In an normal season, a coach leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in this wild and entertaining season, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the projected vote could shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to create big plays out of broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary year, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet this isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But he comes up short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.

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