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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct path: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement receives the award. In practice, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or simply the biggest upset.

But the current race is fundamentally unique. The group of candidates is unusually deep. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning division winners fading and recent also-rans ascending collectively. In an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear favorite. But in this wild and thrilling season, he's competing with five other outstanding coaches.

Here is how the projected vote ought to be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore quarterbacks. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From midseason onward, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's sustained dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a innovative aerial game that creates wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays out of broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Almost each bet – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, transforming Williams into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight offseasons, he was the top name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

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

Where his case runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a given after his early public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is figuring out a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year setback caused the Jags stumbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's number three 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 roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still