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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly serves as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your team in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who orchestrated the largest resurgence is handed the prize. In reality, it creates an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent leadership or merely the biggest surprise.

However this year's field is distinctly unique. The group of contenders is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with reigning division champions fading and longtime also-rans rising together. During an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's facing multiple other outstanding coaches.

This is how the projected ballot could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love quarterbacks. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his special talent. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an attack built solely in the coach's vision: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a creative aerial game that frees wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to create big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. This is rare for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a normal year, he would be the overwhelming choice. Yet the current isn't a typical year!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. However he falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a certainty after his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but often collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse had the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Coach of the Year case has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one place ahead of peers.

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