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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently serves as a type of mea culpa. Our apologies we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

On paper, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest turnaround wins the prize. However, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely rewarding excellent leadership or simply the most shocking shock.

However this year's field is profoundly different. The group of nominees is remarkably talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with recent conference champions declining and recent also-rans rising collectively. During an typical season, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this turbulent and fun season, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot could look.

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

Coach of the Year selectors adore quarterbacks. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Given a proper ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to display his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a creative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't available, he's been able to create big plays out of nothing.

Johnson arrived to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the building with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the top candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

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

The area where his case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Bears currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the list because the offensive production is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. But he comes up just short here.

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

Coen is in a similar situation to Johnson. He's a fellow rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic resurgence. Over the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles aspects, which wasn't a guarantee following his early public appearances and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on newbies. Starting with the leader himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and all elements into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won multiple games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a different quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has regressed since that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the season, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still