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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward formula. It often serves as a form of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who orchestrated the largest improvement is handed the prize. However, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the most shocking shock.

But the current field is profoundly different. The pool of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division champions declining and longtime strugglers improving collectively. During an normal season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a wild and entertaining year, he's competing with five other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the projected vote could look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

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. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

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

Where his case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list 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 Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. But Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen hired first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year argument has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still