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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple formula. It commonly acts as a form of apology. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the biggest improvement is handed the award. In practice, it fuels an annual argument about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the greatest upset.

However the current competition is fundamentally unique. The group of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners declining and longtime strugglers improving in unison. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with five other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the projected vote could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to spin big plays out of broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an early strong start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year case has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still