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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It frequently acts as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who oversaw the largest turnaround wins the prize. However, it fuels an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent leadership or merely the biggest upset.

But this year's competition is distinctly unique. The list of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions falling away and longtime also-rans improving together. In an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in this chaotic and entertaining season, he's competing with several other elite coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the immense pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of youth and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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