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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It often acts as a type of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the biggest resurgence is handed the prize. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or just the biggest upset.

However this year's competition is distinctly unique. The list of nominees is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning division winners falling away and recent underperformers rising in unison. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with five other elite candidates.

This is how the projected ballot should look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

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

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. However he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still