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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It frequently serves as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct line: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround receives the award. However, it fuels an annual argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or simply the greatest upset.

But the current race is profoundly unique. The pool of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division winners falling away and recent strugglers rising in unison. In an typical season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this turbulent and entertaining year, he's competing with five other exceptional candidates.

This is how the projected vote could look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal system, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to create magic from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every bet – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the clear-cut favorite. But this isn't a typical season!

Where his candidacy comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained success. But Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over 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 transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, Coen has nailed the off-field stuff, which was not a certainty following his initial public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff mix of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse caused the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

Every Strong of the Year case has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

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