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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple formula. It frequently acts as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the largest improvement wins the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or simply the greatest upset.

However the current competition is profoundly different. The group of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners falling away and longtime strugglers improving together. In an typical season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's up against five other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the projected vote could shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every decision – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the building with the level of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his early public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.

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