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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple pattern. It often functions as a type of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who orchestrated the largest improvement receives the award. In reality, it sparks an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or simply the greatest upset.

But this year's field is distinctly different. The group of contenders is unusually strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions falling away and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. During an ordinary season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in this chaotic and fun year, he's up against several other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote could be structured.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by quarterbacks. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his rare talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an offense built entirely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that frees wide-open receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to create big plays out of nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every bet – overhauling the offensive line, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero sure things. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a ordinary season, he would be the clear-cut favorite. Yet this is not a typical season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is established for sustained winning. But he falls short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, 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 season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has nailed the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That kind of setup is intriguing on paper, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

Following an initial strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive plays and started seeking consistent ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in October. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

Still