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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly functions as a kind of apology. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who engineered the biggest resurgence is handed the prize. However, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or just the most shocking upset.

However the current race is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions declining and longtime strugglers rising collectively. In an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in this wild and thrilling season, he's competing with multiple other outstanding candidates.

This is how the projected ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to spin magic from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of expectations he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But this isn't a normal season!

The area where his case comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the leadership stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still