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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly functions as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence is handed the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual debate about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or just the biggest surprise.

Yet this year's field is fundamentally different. The group of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the year of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division champions falling away and longtime also-rans ascending collectively. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in such a chaotic and fun year, he's competing with several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!

Where his candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But he comes up short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of new ideas and experience, he bet on first-timers. From the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still