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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It commonly serves as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the largest resurgence is handed the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or just the greatest upset.

Yet this year's competition is profoundly unique. The list of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime underperformers rising collectively. In an ordinary year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this turbulent and entertaining season, he's facing five other elite candidates.

This is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to conjure big plays out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current isn't a typical year!

Where his case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. 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 two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the leadership aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. From the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason setback caused the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still