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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple formula. It frequently serves as a kind of apology. We regret we got wrong your squad in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who engineered the most dramatic resurgence is handed the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or simply the most shocking shock.

Yet the latest race is distinctly different. The list of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division champions fading and recent underperformers improving in unison. Under an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a chaotic and entertaining season, he's facing multiple other exceptional coaches.

This is how the projected vote ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

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

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to create magic from nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the building with the immense hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current is not a typical season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run 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 ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB 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 schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still