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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a type of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest improvement wins the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or simply the greatest surprise.

Yet the current field is profoundly unique. The list of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions declining and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a wild and entertaining season, he's up against five other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name 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 exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

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

The area where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an early strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still