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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It often serves as a form of apology. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic resurgence wins the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or simply the biggest shock.

But the current field is fundamentally different. The list of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and longtime also-rans rising collectively. In an ordinary year, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's up against several other elite candidates.

Below is how the projected vote could look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his special ability. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained excellence. Under Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers all over the field. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Almost each bet – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

In a ordinary season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a typical year!

The area where his case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching mix of youth and experience, Coen hired newbies. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed after that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

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