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

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the largest improvement receives the prize. In reality, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or simply the biggest upset.

Yet the current race is profoundly different. The group of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division champions declining and longtime strugglers ascending together. Under an typical year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing multiple other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot could look.

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

Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, Williams has been given the chance to demonstrate his special ability. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of improvising. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to conjure big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every decision – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a typical year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But the current isn't a typical season!

The area where his case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. But he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff mix of youth and experience, he bet on newbies. From the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

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

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still