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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly acts as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the largest turnaround wins the award. In practice, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or simply the biggest surprise.

Yet this year's race is profoundly unique. The list of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions falling away and recent underperformers rising together. In an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in this turbulent and fun year, he's facing several other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot could look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his special ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been capable to create magic out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the level of pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the runaway choice. Yet this isn't a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces 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 Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the off-field aspects, which wasn't a given after his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank 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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