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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a direct path: the coach who engineered the largest resurgence wins the prize. However, it sparks an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or merely the greatest surprise.

Yet the latest field is profoundly different. The group of nominees is remarkably strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with reigning division winners declining and longtime underperformers rising together. In an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a turbulent and fun season, he's facing five other elite coaches.

Below is how the projected vote could look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper environment, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his rare ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained dominance. Under Johnson, Williams has become more confident, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide receiver receivers all over the field. The QB has capitalized. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to create magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive philosophy. Almost each bet – rebuilding the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has worked. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the building with the immense pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical year, he would be the runaway favorite. But this isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are famously unreliable. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, Coen has excelled at the leadership stuff, which was not a given after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff blend of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, 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 AFC's number three playoff seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year case has a hinge decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still