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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It commonly serves as a type of apology. We regret we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign forecasts.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the biggest turnaround is handed the prize. In reality, it fuels an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior coaching or just the most shocking upset.

But this year's field is profoundly different. The group of nominees is unusually strong. It has been the season of turnarounds. The NFL has been unpredictable, with reigning division champions fading and longtime also-rans ascending in unison. In an ordinary year, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in this chaotic and entertaining season, he's competing with several other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected vote could be structured.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to display his special talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's prolonged performance. With his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense built solely in the coach's vision: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that frees wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when clear throws haven't been available, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a clear offensive philosophy. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has succeeded. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero sure things. Somehow, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive genius but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming choice. But this isn't a typical year!

Where his case comes a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense presently sit in the bottom third in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive work. With a couple bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is in place for long-term winning. However Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

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

Coen is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee following his initial public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with rookies. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but often fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has pulled the entire group and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the track. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He receives the tiniest knock in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that time, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him just one place ahead of peers.

Still