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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently serves as a form of apology. Sorry we got wrong your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct line: the coach who oversaw the largest resurgence receives the prize. However, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or just the most shocking surprise.

Yet this year's field is profoundly different. The pool of contenders is unusually talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference champions declining and recent also-rans rising in unison. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a wild and entertaining year, he's competing with five other elite candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his special ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin magic from nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive vision. Almost every bet – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a normal season, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a normal year!

Where his case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still