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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It commonly functions as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the largest improvement is handed the award. In reality, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or merely the greatest shock.

However the current field is fundamentally unique. The pool of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning conference champions fading and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. Under an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

This is how the projected vote could shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right system, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his rare ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent excellence. Under Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that frees wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the building with the immense hype he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current isn't a typical season!

The area where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained success. But Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

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

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching mix of youth and experience, he bet on first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

Following an early hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still