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

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest turnaround wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or merely the biggest surprise.

However this year's field is fundamentally different. The pool of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions declining and recent strugglers improving collectively. In an typical year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's facing five other elite coaches.

This is how the projected vote ought to look.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to create magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the immense hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. But this is not a normal year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a guarantee after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

Still