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Usually, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It often serves as a form of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the biggest resurgence is handed the prize. However, it sparks an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior coaching or simply the greatest upset.

Yet this year's competition is distinctly different. The group of candidates is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference winners falling away and recent also-rans ascending together. During an typical season, a coach guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming front-runner. Yet in such a wild and fun year, he's up against multiple other outstanding coaches.

This is how the projected vote could be structured.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just corrected his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent performance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in the coach's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson came to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every bet – rebuilding the trenches, highlighting the tight ends, turning the QB into a timing-based thrower – has worked. That's uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of expectations he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top candidate on the head coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive genius but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical season, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. But this is not a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. However he falls just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a rapid resurgence. During the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, Coen has mastered the leadership stuff, which was not a guarantee after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed their staff with the perfect coaching mix of new ideas and experience, Coen hired newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everybody is figuring out a new job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and all elements together.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator might have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

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