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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It commonly acts as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic turnaround wins the prize. In practice, it sparks an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent leadership or simply the biggest shock.

However this year's race is distinctly different. The list of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been messy, with recent division champions fading and longtime also-rans ascending in unison. During an typical year, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this turbulent and entertaining season, he's up against multiple other exceptional candidates.

This is how the projected ballot could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than improvising. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the level of expectations he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where his candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has mastered the off-field aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year case has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still