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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It often serves as a type of apology. Sorry we misjudged your franchise in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest resurgence receives the prize. However, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or simply the biggest upset.

But the latest race is distinctly unique. The group of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners falling away and longtime strugglers improving collectively. During an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in this turbulent and thrilling season, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

This is how the projected ballot should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost each decision – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming 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 leader who entered the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current is not a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles aspects, which was not a certainty following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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