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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It often acts as a type of apology. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround receives the award. In practice, it creates an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or merely the greatest upset.

However this year's competition is profoundly unique. The pool of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference champions declining and recent strugglers improving in unison. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and fun year, he's facing multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. History shows this. 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 Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually each bet – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a normal season!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But Johnson comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field aspects, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. From the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still