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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently serves as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the biggest upset.

Yet the current field is profoundly different. The pool of nominees is exceptionally strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions falling away and recent strugglers ascending together. During an typical season, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and fun year, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the building with the immense pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, 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 breathe new life into an organization.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But this is not a normal year!

Where his candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying 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 sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. But Johnson comes up short here.

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

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an early strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the season in October. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still