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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It commonly functions as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest resurgence wins the award. In reality, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or just the most shocking shock.

However the latest field is profoundly unique. The pool of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners fading and recent also-rans ascending together. During an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's facing five other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. But this isn't a typical season!

Where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field stuff, which wasn't a given after his early public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of peers.

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