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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple formula. It often serves as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence receives the award. In reality, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or just the most shocking surprise.

However this year's race is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division winners fading and recent underperformers ascending in unison. In an typical year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with several other outstanding coaches.

This is how the projected vote should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. 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.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the organization with the level of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this isn't a normal season!

The area where his case runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a given after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes 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 skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still