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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It often serves as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who engineered the biggest turnaround receives the award. In practice, it sparks an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or just the greatest upset.

But the latest race is fundamentally unique. The pool of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners declining and recent strugglers ascending collectively. Under an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a chaotic and fun year, he's up against multiple other elite coaches.

Here is how the projected vote could look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his special talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to conjure big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Virtually each bet – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current isn't a typical season!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the off-field aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the team wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

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

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

Every Strong of the Year case has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still