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Usually, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor follows a simple script. It frequently functions as a form of mea culpa. Our apologies we misjudged your squad in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a clear-cut path: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround is handed the award. However, it sparks an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or simply the most shocking surprise.

But this year's race is fundamentally unique. The list of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference champions declining and recent strugglers improving collectively. Under an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the Denver Broncos to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in such a chaotic and fun season, he's up against several other outstanding candidates.

Here is how the hypothetical ballot could shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, the QB has been given the opportunity to display his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less careless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of going rogue. It is an attack built entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical ground attack, a heavy dose of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that springs wide receiver receivers everywhere. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been able to spin big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based passer – has worked. This is uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the organization with the kind of expectations he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a scheme genius but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

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

Where his case runs a bit unstuck is on the defensive side. The Bears presently sit 25th in defensive efficiency. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the team would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is established for sustained winning. But Johnson comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has nailed the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen walked into the Jaguars with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect staff cocktail of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That kind of setup is exciting on paper, but frequently collapses in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job on the fly. Yet Coen has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team wobbling again. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the attack around his playmakers and the running game, and asked his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the standings because he took over a skilled team, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

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

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it shaped it. Through the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that time, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the season, putting him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still