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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward script. It commonly functions as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your team in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement receives the award. However, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or merely the biggest surprise.

But the current field is distinctly different. The list of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners declining and recent strugglers rising in unison. Under an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's facing five other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the projected vote ought to look.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an attack built solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who entered the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not just to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a normal season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But this isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time leader who has orchestrated a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a given after his early press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, he hired first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

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