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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who oversaw the largest improvement wins the award. In reality, it sparks an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or merely the most shocking surprise.

Yet the current field is profoundly different. The group of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division winners fading and recent also-rans ascending in unison. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this wild and fun year, he's competing with multiple other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense built solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that frees wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to create big plays from nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the immense pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a typical season, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a normal year!

Where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for sustained success. But Johnson falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. From the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting in theory, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year argument has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still