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Ordinarily, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It commonly functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround receives the award. In practice, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

Yet the latest competition is distinctly different. The pool of nominees is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent division champions falling away and longtime also-rans ascending in unison. During an typical season, a coach leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and fun year, he's up against multiple other elite coaches.

Here is how the projected vote should shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his rare talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to spin big plays from nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every bet – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet the current is not a normal season!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a couple breaks of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However he falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has nailed the leadership stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring everyone and everything together.

Following an initial 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 typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year argument has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still