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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently serves as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your team in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround is handed the award. In reality, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or merely the most shocking shock.

But the current competition is profoundly unique. The pool of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference champions declining and recent also-rans rising collectively. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and fun season, he's up against several other outstanding candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote should be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an offense built entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that frees wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to conjure big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Virtually each bet – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current isn't a normal season!

The area where his case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. From the leader on down to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing explosive 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 clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still