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Typically, the National Football League's Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward script. It commonly acts as a type of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your team in our pre-campaign projections.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who orchestrated the largest turnaround receives the prize. In practice, it creates an annual debate about expectations and whether we're actually rewarding excellent coaching or just the biggest surprise.

However the current competition is distinctly unique. The group of nominees is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners declining and recent underperformers rising collectively. In an normal season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear favorite. But in this turbulent and fun season, he's competing with five other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the projected vote ought to be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, Their Record

Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his otherworldly ability. Since midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's consistent dominance. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide-open targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a clear offensive vision. Almost each gamble – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has worked. That's rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a leader who walked into the building with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject new life into an organization.

During a typical season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term success. However Johnson comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has orchestrated a rapid resurgence. Over the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a given following his early press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an early hot start, there was a possibility that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders overcorrect. Coen did not. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

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

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

Parting ways from a veteran, signing a different signal-caller and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have derailed the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP candidate. He has regressed since that time, slipping to a lower rank in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the schedule, placing him only one place ahead of peers.

Still