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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward formula. It often acts as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the largest resurgence wins the prize. However, it sparks an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or simply the greatest shock.

Yet the latest field is fundamentally different. The group of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division champions declining and recent underperformers rising collectively. During an ordinary season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and fun season, he's facing multiple other outstanding candidates.

This is how the projected vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to create magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a ordinary season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet this is not a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson falls just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early hot start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still