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Typically, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a simple pattern. It commonly acts as a form of apology. We regret we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who engineered the largest improvement wins the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual debate about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or merely the greatest upset.

Yet the latest race is profoundly different. The group of contenders is remarkably talented. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners declining and longtime underperformers rising together. During an normal year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot should be structured.

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

Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme genius but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a ordinary season, he would be the clear-cut choice. But the current is not a normal year!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for sustained winning. But he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a swift resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. From the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an initial hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still