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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It often acts as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the largest improvement wins the award. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or just the greatest shock.

However the current field is distinctly unique. The pool of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division champions fading and recent strugglers ascending in unison. Under an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's competing with multiple other elite candidates.

This is how the projected ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his rare talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to conjure magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this isn't a normal season!

Where his case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which was not a guarantee after his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still