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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It often acts as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence wins the award. In practice, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or simply the greatest shock.

However the latest competition is fundamentally unique. The list of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent division champions falling away and recent also-rans rising together. In an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a wild and fun year, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the projected vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been able to create magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a normal campaign!

Where his case comes slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But he falls short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

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

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. From the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an early hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year case has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of peers.

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