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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward pattern. It commonly functions as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround is handed the prize. In practice, it creates an annual debate about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or just the greatest surprise.

But the latest field is fundamentally different. The pool of nominees is remarkably deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with recent division winners falling away and longtime underperformers rising together. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a wild and fun season, he's up against several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the projected vote should look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his rare talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense built solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a innovative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every decision – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a leader who entered the organization with the immense pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current is not a normal year!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. But Johnson 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 orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet he has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an early hot start, there was a possibility that the season would go off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

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

Each Coach of the Year narrative has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single place ahead of other QBs.

Still