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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It frequently functions as a kind of apology. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the biggest resurgence receives the award. In practice, it creates an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or just the greatest upset.

Yet this year's competition is fundamentally different. The pool of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent division champions declining and longtime also-rans rising in unison. In an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this wild and fun year, he's up against several other elite coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot could look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to spin big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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