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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly serves as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the coach who orchestrated the biggest improvement is handed the award. In practice, it fuels an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior leadership or simply the most shocking upset.

However this year's field is profoundly unique. The group of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime strugglers rising in unison. Under an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a wild and thrilling year, he's up against five other elite coaches.

This is how the projected vote could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of freelancing. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that frees wide-open targets consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been able to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every bet – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. However he falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a similar situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his initial public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive plays and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

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

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just a single place ahead of peers.

Still