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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward script. It frequently acts as a form of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the largest improvement is handed the award. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or simply the biggest shock.

Yet the current competition is fundamentally different. The pool of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners declining and longtime strugglers improving collectively. During an typical year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in such a wild and fun year, he's facing several other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the projected vote could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an attack designed solely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to create magic out of nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the pass-catchers, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the immense hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet the current isn't a normal year!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However he falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a given following his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, he trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction 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 Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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