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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It often acts as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the biggest improvement receives the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or just the biggest shock.

However the latest race is profoundly different. The list of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners falling away and recent strugglers rising collectively. Under an normal year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a wild and thrilling year, he's facing five other elite candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack built solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually each bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However he falls just short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a guarantee after his initial public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still