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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year award follows a simple script. It commonly serves as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the largest turnaround receives the prize. However, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or simply the greatest shock.

But the current race is fundamentally unique. The pool of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division champions declining and recent underperformers improving collectively. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this wild and fun season, he's facing five other elite coaches.

This is how the projected vote ought to look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create big plays from nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the level of expectations he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive wizard but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this isn't a normal year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But he comes up short here.

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

Coen is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a rapid resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still