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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple pattern. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a direct line: the coach who oversaw the biggest turnaround wins the award. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or just the most shocking shock.

Yet this year's competition is distinctly different. The group of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime also-rans ascending collectively. In an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in such a wild and entertaining season, he's up against multiple other outstanding coaches.

This is how the projected vote ought to be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. 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 home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an attack designed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to create magic out of nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a normal season, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet the current is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are famously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term success. But Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a risk that the campaign would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year argument has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

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