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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently serves as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the largest improvement receives the prize. However, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

But the current competition is fundamentally different. The pool of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division champions falling away and longtime strugglers ascending together. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and fun season, he's competing with several other elite coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to display his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive dork but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a typical season!

The area where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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