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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward formula. It commonly functions as a kind of apology. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest resurgence wins the award. However, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or simply the most shocking shock.

But this year's competition is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and longtime strugglers ascending in unison. During an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this turbulent and entertaining season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an offense built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every bet – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a ordinary year, he would be the runaway choice. But this isn't a typical year!

Where his case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However he comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, he bet on newbies. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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