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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward formula. It commonly acts as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest improvement receives the award. However, it sparks an annual debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or just the biggest surprise.

However this year's competition is profoundly unique. The pool of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division winners falling away and recent also-rans rising together. Under an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a turbulent and fun season, he's up against several other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot should look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current isn't a typical year!

Where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson 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 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 sustained success. However Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still