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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It commonly functions as a type of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround wins the award. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or merely the most shocking surprise.

But the current race is profoundly unique. The pool of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners fading and recent strugglers ascending collectively. During an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a wild and thrilling year, he's competing with five other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his rare talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, he would be the runaway choice. But the current is not a typical season!

Where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and experience, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

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

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year argument has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still