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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It often functions as a kind of apology. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the largest resurgence receives the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or simply the most shocking surprise.

But this year's race is fundamentally unique. The pool of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference winners declining and recent strugglers ascending together. Under an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a wild and entertaining season, he's competing with five other elite candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to conjure magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every decision – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. However he comes up short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a given after his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has cooled off since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

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