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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a form of apology. Sorry we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround is handed the award. However, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or just the greatest shock.

But this year's race is distinctly different. The list of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions fading and longtime underperformers improving in unison. During an normal season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this chaotic and fun year, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the projected vote could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But this isn't a normal season!

Where his candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Each Coach of the Year case has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of peers.

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