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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your franchise in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the coach who engineered the largest resurgence is handed the award. In practice, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring excellent coaching or simply the greatest shock.

However the current field is profoundly unique. The pool of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners declining and longtime strugglers improving in unison. In an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling season, he's competing with multiple other elite coaches.

This is how the ideal vote could shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic from nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost every bet – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

In a normal year, he would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a typical campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking reliable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still