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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly functions as a type of apology. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who orchestrated the largest resurgence wins the award. In reality, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or simply the biggest upset.

Yet this year's competition is profoundly different. The list of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division winners declining and recent underperformers rising in unison. In an normal season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this wild and entertaining year, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote could look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson not only corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's prolonged dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to conjure big plays from nothing.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

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

The area where his case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. However Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership aspects, which wasn't a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player candidate. He has regressed since that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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