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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple formula. It often acts as a form of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who orchestrated the largest improvement is handed the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or merely the greatest shock.

However this year's competition is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners fading and recent underperformers improving together. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against five other elite coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But the current is not a normal year!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

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