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Typically, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple script. It frequently serves as a form of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your franchise in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a direct path: the coach who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround wins the award. However, it creates an yearly discussion about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or just the most shocking upset.

However the latest field is profoundly different. The list of contenders is remarkably strong. It has been the year of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with reigning division winners falling away and longtime also-rans rising in unison. In an normal year, Sean Payton leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the clear front-runner. But in such a wild and fun year, he's facing five other outstanding coaches.

Below is how the projected ballot ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore signal-callers. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you fix a franchise QB, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach not only corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. In the right environment, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his rare talent. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent excellence. Under his guidance, Williams has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's vision: a bully-ball ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open receivers all over the field. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been capable to spin big plays from broken plays.

The coach arrived to the Bears with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who entered the organization with the immense expectations he did. For two straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are no sure things. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a scheme dork but the kind of leader that can inject new life into an organization.

During a typical year, he would be the runaway choice. But this isn't a typical campaign!

Where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly into trouble is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously inconsistent. Defensive minds can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be several victories behind. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term success. But he comes up short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to Johnson. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has orchestrated a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best overall ball of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has nailed the intangibles stuff, which was not a given after his initial press conference appearances and some of his preseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw coaching staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal coaching mix of youth and veteran savvy, Coen hired first-timers. From the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of setup is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in practice – with other teams are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job on the fly. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything together.

Following an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback caused the team stumbling once more. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He didn't. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around key players and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more.

The outcomes are clear. The Jags have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He gets the slightest knock in the rankings because he inherited a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, 13-3

Each Strong of the Year case has a hinge moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the season in the early weeks. Rather, it shaped it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away since that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only a single place ahead of peers.

Still