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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a form of apology. We regret we got wrong your team in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the largest turnaround wins the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly honoring superior leadership or just the biggest surprise.

But the current field is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is unusually talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent division champions fading and longtime underperformers rising together. During an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in this chaotic and fun year, he's up against multiple other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot should be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed his young quarterback; he's freed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of improvising. It is an attack built solely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws weren't there, he's been able to conjure big plays from nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a timing-based passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the level of hype Johnson did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Somehow, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an franchise.

During a typical year, he would be the overwhelming favorite. But the current isn't a normal year!

The area where his candidacy runs a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously fickle. Coaches can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several wins worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term success. However he comes up short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to his counterpart. He's another first-time leader who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership aspects, which was not a given following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw coaching staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed themselves with the ideal staff blend of youth and veteran savvy, he hired newbies. From the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But he has managed to bring the entire group and everything into sync.

Following an early strong start, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run answers and started seeking sustainable ones. The coach recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. Coen receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

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

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

Parting ways from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller could have ended the campaign in October. Rather, it defined it. By the mid point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still