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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It often acts as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic turnaround is handed the prize. However, it creates an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or simply the greatest upset.

However the current race is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions fading and recent strugglers ascending collectively. In an normal year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and fun season, he's competing with multiple other outstanding candidates.

This is how the projected vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack built solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to conjure magic from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every bet – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. Yet this isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained success. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty following his early public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year argument has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle 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 dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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