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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward formula. It commonly functions as a form of apology. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who orchestrated the biggest resurgence receives the prize. However, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or just the biggest surprise.

Yet this year's field is distinctly unique. The group of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with recent conference winners declining and longtime strugglers improving in unison. In an typical year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's facing several other elite coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been given the chance to display his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to conjure magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the level of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a normal season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a normal season!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. From the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still