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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward formula. It often acts as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. However, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or just the greatest surprise.

However this year's field is profoundly different. The list of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference champions fading and recent strugglers rising together. Under an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

This is how the projected vote ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. Under Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been capable to create magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the intangibles aspects, which was not a certainty following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an early hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged 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 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still