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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It often serves as a kind of apology. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the biggest improvement receives the prize. In practice, it creates an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or just the biggest shock.

Yet this year's competition is distinctly different. The pool of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions declining and recent also-rans rising collectively. In an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a wild and fun season, he's facing multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the projected ballot could look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually each bet – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the building with the immense pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a typical season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. However Johnson comes up short here.

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

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a given following his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on newbies. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year case has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the season in October. Instead, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still