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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward script. It commonly acts as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who engineered the most dramatic improvement wins the award. In reality, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or just the biggest shock.

Yet the current competition is profoundly unique. The group of candidates is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners falling away and longtime also-rans rising together. In an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. But in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's facing five other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to create big plays from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the level of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But he falls short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the off-field stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an early hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only a single place ahead of other QBs.

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