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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the largest improvement receives the award. In practice, it creates an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or merely the greatest surprise.

Yet this year's field is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division champions fading and longtime underperformers rising together. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a chaotic and fun year, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot ought to look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to display his special ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet the current is not a normal year!

Where his case runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which was not a given after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an initial hot start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still