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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It frequently acts as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the largest improvement receives the award. In reality, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or just the most shocking shock.

But the latest competition is fundamentally unique. The group of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions falling away and recent underperformers improving together. During an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this wild and thrilling year, he's competing with several other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his rare talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

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

The area where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. However he falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a given after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still