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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your team in our preseason predictions.

On paper, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround wins the prize. In reality, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or simply the biggest shock.

But the current race is profoundly different. The list of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division champions falling away and recent also-rans improving in unison. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and fun year, he's facing multiple other outstanding coaches.

This is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper system, the QB has been given the opportunity to showcase his special ability. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the gameplan rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a innovative passing attack that springs wide-open targets all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to conjure big plays from nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a normal year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a normal year!

Where Johnson's case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But Johnson comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a similar spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, he has mastered the off-field stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year case has a defining decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the season in October. Rather, it made it. By 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 dropback over the second half of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still