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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the largest turnaround wins the prize. In reality, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or simply the greatest surprise.

Yet this year's field is profoundly different. The list of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions declining and longtime underperformers rising together. In an ordinary season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this turbulent and thrilling season, he's facing multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to display his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to create big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive vision. Virtually each gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this is not a typical year!

Where his candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However he falls just short here.

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

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a swift 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 transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee after his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of other QBs.

Still