The Way The Bizarre Season Broke the Traditional NFL Coach of the Year Blueprint.

Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple formula. It commonly functions as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the biggest resurgence is handed the award. However, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or merely the biggest shock.

However the current competition is fundamentally unique. The pool of nominees is exceptionally deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and recent also-rans improving collectively. Under an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in this wild and entertaining year, he's facing several other elite coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide-open targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin magic from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson 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 heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained success. However he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the leadership aspects, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still