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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It commonly acts as a type of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the largest resurgence wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or simply the most shocking surprise.

Yet the current field is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been messy, with recent conference champions fading and longtime underperformers rising collectively. Under an typical year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a wild and thrilling season, he's up against several other outstanding coaches.

This is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the building with the immense hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a normal campaign!

The area where his case runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. But Johnson comes up just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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