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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It commonly functions as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic improvement wins the award. In reality, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest surprise.

However the current competition is fundamentally different. The pool of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners falling away and longtime underperformers ascending in unison. During an ordinary season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's competing with multiple other outstanding candidates.

This is how the projected ballot ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to create magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a normal campaign!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a swift resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a given after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an initial hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him just one place ahead of peers.

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