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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly acts as a form of mea culpa. We regret we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a direct path: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround is handed the award. In practice, it fuels an annual debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent coaching or simply the biggest surprise.

However the latest field is profoundly unique. The pool of nominees is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners declining and recent also-rans rising together. Under an ordinary year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in such a turbulent and entertaining season, he's up against five other exceptional candidates.

This is how the projected ballot could shake out.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year voters are fascinated by QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's unlocked him. In the right ecosystem, Williams has been given the opportunity to demonstrate his otherworldly ability. From Week 9, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. That's not a hot streak – it's prolonged excellence. With his guidance, the quarterback has become more confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than freelancing. It is an offense built solely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a consistent helping of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

The coach came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – overhauling the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a coach who walked into the building with the kind of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

During a ordinary year, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current is not a typical season!

Where his candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However he falls just short in this ranking.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a rapid turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also spearheaded the transformation of a defense that now ranks number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a guarantee after his initial press conference introduction and some of his offseason moves.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff mix of youth and experience, he trusted newbies. Starting with the leader himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing on paper, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job on the fly. But Coen has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

Following an early hot beginning, there was a risk that the season would go off the rails. A mid-year setback had the team wobbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the AFC's No 3 playoff seed. He receives the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year case has a pivotal decision. For Mike Macdonald, it was his QB decision.

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new signal-caller and pairing him with an new play-caller might have derailed the campaign in October. Rather, it made it. Through the middle point of the year, the new QB was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has fallen away after that hot streak, slipping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one place ahead of peers.

Still