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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a straightforward script. It frequently serves as a form of apology. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround wins the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or just the biggest shock.

But the latest race is profoundly different. The list of contenders is remarkably deep. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions fading and longtime underperformers ascending in unison. During an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a chaotic and fun season, he's facing several other elite coaches.

This is how the ideal vote could shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love quarterbacks. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal system, Williams has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a steady helping of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't available, he's been capable to conjure magic out of nothing.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of expectations Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a normal year, he would be the clear-cut favorite. But the current isn't a normal year!

Where Johnson's case runs slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but nobody can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a few breaks of the ball, the team would be several wins behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for sustained success. But he falls just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a swift resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching cocktail of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. Starting with the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot beginning, there was a risk that the campaign would veer off the track. A midseason collapse caused the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year narrative has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB move.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of peers.

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