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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently functions as a kind of apology. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the biggest improvement receives the prize. In reality, it creates an annual debate about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

But the current field is distinctly different. The list of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners falling away and recent strugglers rising collectively. During an typical year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a wild and entertaining year, he's facing five other elite coaches.

Here is how the projected vote could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every bet – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a ordinary season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a normal campaign!

The area where his case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for long-term winning. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

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

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

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