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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly acts as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. In practice, it creates an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or simply the most shocking upset.

However this year's race is distinctly unique. The group of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners falling away and recent strugglers rising together. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this wild and fun season, he's facing several other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot should shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the building with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this is not a normal year!

The area where his case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, 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 work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But he falls short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty following his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and experience, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one place ahead of peers.

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