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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the largest improvement receives the award. In reality, it creates an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or merely the most shocking shock.

However the latest race is profoundly unique. The list of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been messy, with reigning division winners falling away and recent strugglers rising collectively. During an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and fun season, he's competing with multiple other exceptional candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot should look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system rather than improvising. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that creates wide-open targets consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to create big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. Yet this is not a normal season!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. But he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a certainty after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and experience, Coen hired newbies. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

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