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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It often functions as a form of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround wins the prize. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring superior leadership or just the biggest surprise.

But the current competition is fundamentally different. The list of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners fading and recent also-rans ascending collectively. During an normal year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in this chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with several other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the projected vote should be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been capable to create magic from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. This is rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the organization with the immense expectations he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for long-term success. But he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a given after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Rather, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still