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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a form of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your team in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the largest turnaround wins the award. However, it fuels an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or merely the greatest shock.

Yet the latest competition is fundamentally unique. The list of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been chaotic, with reigning division winners fading and recent underperformers rising collectively. Under an typical season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this turbulent and thrilling year, he's competing with multiple other elite coaches.

This is how the hypothetical vote should shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open targets consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been capable to conjure big plays from broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually each bet – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the kind of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. But this is not a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a dramatic resurgence. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has mastered the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the perfect coaching blend of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. But he has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an initial strong start, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year argument has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that time, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still