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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward script. It commonly serves as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the largest resurgence receives the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or just the most shocking shock.

Yet the current field is distinctly unique. The group of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division champions declining and longtime underperformers rising in unison. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this chaotic and fun year, he's competing with multiple other elite coaches.

This is how the projected vote should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his special ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the building with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two 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 lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current is not a typical season!

The area where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded 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 off-field stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over 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 narrative has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still