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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It often serves as a type of apology. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the biggest improvement receives the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or just the biggest upset.

However this year's race is distinctly unique. The group of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division champions fading and longtime strugglers ascending together. In an typical year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and entertaining year, he's facing five other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the projected vote could shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters love QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide-open targets consistently. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to create magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a ordinary season, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a normal year!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still