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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy follows a simple pattern. It commonly functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign projections.

Theoretically, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the largest resurgence is handed the prize. However, it creates an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or simply the biggest shock.

But the latest field is fundamentally different. The list of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions fading and recent strugglers improving collectively. During an typical year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. But in this turbulent and thrilling season, he's up against several other elite coaches.

This is how the projected vote should be structured.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to display his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Bears sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a ordinary year, he would be the runaway choice. But this is not a typical season!

The area where his case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. However he falls just short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the leadership aspects, which was not a guarantee following his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position 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 cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. By the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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