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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently serves as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the most dramatic turnaround is handed the award. However, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or merely the greatest upset.

Yet the current race is distinctly different. The pool of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference champions fading and longtime also-rans improving in unison. During an normal season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and thrilling season, he's facing several other elite coaches.

This is how the ideal ballot should look.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson didn't merely corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been given the chance to display his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide receiver targets consistently. The QB has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to spin magic from broken plays.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Almost each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who entered the organization with the kind of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the most sought-after name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a normal season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current is not a normal season!

The area where his case comes a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But he comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has engineered a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a guarantee following his early public introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year setback caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller could have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the year, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has cooled off after that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still