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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward formula. It frequently serves as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround is handed the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or merely the biggest upset.

But this year's field is distinctly unique. The group of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions declining and longtime underperformers improving collectively. During an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against several other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the level of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a normal year!

Where his case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. However Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a certainty after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still