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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple formula. It frequently functions as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or just the biggest surprise.

Yet this year's competition is fundamentally unique. The list of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners falling away and recent strugglers rising in unison. During an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and fun season, he's up against multiple other outstanding coaches.

This is how the projected ballot ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually each decision – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the building with the level of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current is not a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty after his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still