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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly acts as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement receives the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or just the most shocking surprise.

Yet the current race is fundamentally unique. The group of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference winners fading and recent underperformers rising in unison. In an typical year, a coach guiding the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this chaotic and thrilling season, he's competing with several other exceptional coaches.

Here is how the hypothetical vote could shake out.

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

Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a creative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been capable to create magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for long-term success. But he falls just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen hired newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job in real-time. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an early strong beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets 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 Strong of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still