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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the biggest resurgence wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or just the biggest shock.

However the latest field is distinctly different. The group of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners fading and longtime strugglers ascending collectively. In an ordinary season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with multiple other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to look.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary year, he would be the clear-cut choice. But this is not a typical season!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. However he falls short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A midseason collapse had the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of peers.

Still