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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward script. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the largest improvement wins the prize. However, it sparks an yearly debate about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or simply the greatest shock.

But this year's field is fundamentally unique. The group of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent division winners fading and recent underperformers rising in unison. During an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a wild and entertaining year, he's competing with several other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot could shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this isn't a typical year!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few 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. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

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

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, Coen trusted newbies. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

After an initial hot start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still