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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It often serves as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the biggest improvement receives the award. In reality, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or just the greatest upset.

However the latest field is fundamentally different. The list of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent conference winners falling away and longtime strugglers improving in unison. Under an typical year, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this turbulent and entertaining season, he's competing with five other elite coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become more confident, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a steady dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that creates wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to conjure magic from nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the organization with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But the current is not a normal year!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress 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. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. However he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

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