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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It often functions as a type of mea culpa. Sorry we got wrong your squad in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who oversaw the largest turnaround receives the award. In reality, it fuels an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually rewarding superior coaching or merely the most shocking shock.

But this year's race is distinctly different. The pool of contenders is exceptionally deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning division winners fading and longtime strugglers ascending collectively. Under an normal year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in such a wild and fun year, he's competing with several other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you solve a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his special talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's sustained excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than going rogue. It is an attack constructed entirely in the coach's image: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that creates wide-open targets consistently. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been able to conjure magic from nothing.

Johnson came to the Bears with a specific offensive philosophy. Almost every decision – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. This is uncommon for a first-year skipper. And it's rarer still for a leader who walked into the building with the immense pressure he did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has met expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the type of leader that can inject fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a typical year!

The area where his case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Bears presently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are relying on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be two victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for sustained success. However he comes up just short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar position to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time leader who has engineered a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the most complete all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, he has excelled at the off-field aspects, which was not a given following his initial press conference appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an exceptionally raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal staff mix of youth and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently collapses in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But he has pulled everyone and all elements together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year collapse had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Instead, he simplified things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting reliable ones. Coen recentered the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The results are obvious. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a talented team, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

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

Every Coach of the Year argument has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new play-caller could have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, placing him just one place ahead of other QBs.

Still