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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple script. It frequently serves as a form of apology. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who engineered the most dramatic improvement is handed the prize. However, it creates an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest shock.

Yet the current competition is profoundly different. The list of contenders is exceptionally strong. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners falling away and longtime strugglers rising together. Under an ordinary year, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a chaotic and fun year, he's competing with five other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot should look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his rare talent. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to create magic from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the building with the immense hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the overwhelming choice. Yet the current isn't a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However he comes up just short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the leadership aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still