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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your franchise in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the coach who oversaw the biggest resurgence wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior leadership or merely the greatest upset.

But the latest competition is profoundly different. The list of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division champions falling away and recent strugglers ascending collectively. During an ordinary season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a chaotic and fun year, he's up against five other elite coaches.

Here is how the projected vote ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his rare ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

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

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation 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 best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching blend of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an early strong start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still