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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward formula. It commonly serves as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct line: the coach who orchestrated the biggest resurgence wins the award. However, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the biggest surprise.

But the latest field is distinctly different. The group of candidates is remarkably deep. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions falling away and recent strugglers rising together. Under an typical season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's facing five other exceptional coaches.

This is how the projected ballot could shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, 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 decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that frees wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet this isn't a typical season!

Where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained success. However he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an early strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year argument has a defining 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 campaign in October. Rather, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still