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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly acts as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround is handed the award. In practice, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest surprise.

However this year's race is profoundly unique. The pool of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and longtime strugglers improving 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. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with multiple other exceptional candidates.

This is how the projected vote could look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost every bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet the current is not a normal year!

Where his candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. But he falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty after his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row 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 proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year case has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just one spot ahead of peers.

Still