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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your team in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the largest turnaround receives the award. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior leadership or just the greatest surprise.

However the latest race is distinctly unique. The list of candidates is remarkably strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions fading and longtime underperformers ascending collectively. During an normal season, a coach leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. Yet in such a turbulent and fun season, he's competing with multiple other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected vote should be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the chance to showcase his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Bears sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged dominance. Under his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly submitted to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that frees wide-open targets consistently. The QB has taken advantage. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been able to spin magic out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

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

Where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However he falls just short here.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the leadership stuff, which was not a certainty following his early press conference appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. But he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he streamlined things. The offense stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking consistent 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 Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it defined it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed since that time, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

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