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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently serves as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic resurgence wins the award. However, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or just the biggest surprise.

However this year's field is fundamentally unique. The pool of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning conference champions fading and longtime strugglers rising together. In an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and entertaining year, he's facing multiple other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the projected ballot should be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an attack built solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every decision – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But this isn't a normal campaign!

Where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still