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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly serves as a kind of apology. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the biggest resurgence wins the award. However, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or simply the most shocking shock.

Yet the current field is fundamentally unique. The group of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning division winners fading and recent also-rans improving in unison. Under an typical season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this chaotic and fun season, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.

This is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his rare ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic from nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a typical year!

Where his case comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty following his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen hired first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. But he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year case has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still