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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward formula. It often acts as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the most dramatic improvement wins the award. In practice, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or merely the greatest upset.

But the latest competition is fundamentally different. The list of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division champions fading and recent strugglers ascending together. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in this chaotic and thrilling year, he's up against five other elite candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot could look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to showcase his rare ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the organization with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current isn't a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for long-term success. But he falls just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still