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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround is handed the prize. In practice, it creates an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest surprise.

However this year's competition is distinctly unique. The group of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference champions fading and recent also-rans improving collectively. During an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's up against several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the projected vote could shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the chance to display his rare talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a typical year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a typical campaign!

Where his candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. But Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of youth and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial strong start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

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