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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It commonly functions as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your team in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic resurgence wins the award. However, it sparks an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or simply the greatest shock.

Yet this year's field is fundamentally different. The pool of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners fading and recent strugglers ascending in unison. During an normal year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the projected vote should look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme rather than freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who entered the building with the kind of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the runaway favorite. But this is not a normal year!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's 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 in place for sustained success. However he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off after that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

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