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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward pattern. It commonly acts as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest turnaround wins the award. In reality, it sparks an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent coaching or just the biggest upset.

But the current competition is distinctly unique. The pool of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with reigning conference winners fading and longtime strugglers ascending collectively. In an normal year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a chaotic and thrilling year, he's facing multiple other elite coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot ought to look.

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

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been afforded the chance to display his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's consistent excellence. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an offense constructed solely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin magic from nothing.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive philosophy. Virtually every bet – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer still for a coach who walked into the building with the immense hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

In a typical season, he would be the overwhelming choice. But the current isn't a normal year!

Where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a given after his early public appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, he hired newbies. From the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in reality – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He didn't. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking consistent ones. Coen recentered 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 conference's number three seed. Coen gets the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it defined it. Through the middle point of the year, the acquisition was an MVP contender. He has regressed after that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still