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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward formula. It commonly serves as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the biggest turnaround wins the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the most shocking upset.

Yet the current race is distinctly different. The pool of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division champions falling away and recent underperformers ascending collectively. Under an normal year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this turbulent and entertaining year, he's facing several other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the projected vote should be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. 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 halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the chance to display his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to create big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every bet – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

In a ordinary season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet this is not a normal season!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which wasn't a given following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, he bet on newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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