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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple formula. It commonly functions as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest improvement receives the award. However, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or merely the greatest shock.

Yet the latest race is fundamentally different. The pool of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions fading and recent also-rans rising collectively. During an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in this wild and thrilling season, he's up against several other outstanding candidates.

This is how the projected vote should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the level of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But this isn't a normal campaign!

The area where his case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. From the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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