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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a type of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence receives the prize. In reality, it sparks an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or just the biggest shock.

Yet this year's competition is fundamentally different. The pool of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning division winners declining and recent underperformers ascending in unison. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in this chaotic and entertaining year, he's facing multiple other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right system, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a creative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the level of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still