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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It frequently acts as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the most dramatic improvement wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or merely the biggest shock.

However this year's field is distinctly different. The group of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions falling away and recent underperformers rising in unison. In an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in this wild and thrilling season, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

This is how the projected vote should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a steady dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the immense pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional 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 spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which was not a given following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars 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 learning a new job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Strong of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

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