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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It often serves as a form of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the most dramatic improvement is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or just the most shocking upset.

But this year's competition is fundamentally different. The group of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners fading and recent strugglers rising in unison. During an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a wild and thrilling year, he's up against five other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to look.

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 fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to create magic from broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the building with the immense hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – 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.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this is not a normal season!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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