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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It frequently functions as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who oversaw the largest improvement wins the award. In reality, it sparks an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or merely the most shocking shock.

Yet the latest field is distinctly different. The pool of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent division champions fading and recent underperformers ascending collectively. During an ordinary season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and fun year, he's competing with five other elite coaches.

This is how the projected ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right system, the QB has been given the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has thrived. And when openings weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of expectations Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an franchise.

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

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. But 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 another first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the team wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still