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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward script. It commonly acts as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the biggest improvement receives the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or simply the greatest upset.

Yet this year's field is fundamentally unique. The group of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners falling away and longtime underperformers ascending together. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the projected vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game 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 create big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the immense hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. But this is not a normal year!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained success. However Johnson falls short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. From the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still