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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple formula. It commonly serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the biggest turnaround receives the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or just the greatest upset.

Yet this year's competition is fundamentally different. The list of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division champions fading and longtime strugglers ascending in unison. During an typical year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the projected ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to conjure magic from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a normal year, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But he falls just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still