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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It often serves as a form of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your squad in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic improvement is handed the award. However, it creates an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or merely the biggest shock.

But this year's field is fundamentally different. The group of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners declining and recent strugglers rising together. In an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a wild and entertaining year, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

This is how the projected ballot could be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense built solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually each bet – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

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

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a guarantee after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has regressed since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

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