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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our preseason forecasts.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who orchestrated the largest improvement receives the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or merely the greatest upset.

But the current race is fundamentally unique. The list of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division champions falling away and recent strugglers improving in unison. During an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this wild and entertaining year, he's facing several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the projected vote should look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, Williams has been given the chance to display his special ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide-open receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the immense expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical year, he would be the overwhelming choice. Yet this is not a typical campaign!

The area where his case runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. But Johnson falls just short here.

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

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the off-field stuff, which wasn't a given following his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still