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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It frequently serves as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or merely the most shocking shock.

But the latest race is distinctly unique. The list of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and longtime underperformers rising in unison. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's competing with multiple other elite coaches.

This is how the projected ballot could be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still