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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It frequently acts as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your franchise in our preseason projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the skipper who oversaw the biggest turnaround wins the award. However, it creates an annual argument about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding superior leadership or simply the most shocking surprise.

Yet the current field is profoundly unique. The list of candidates is unusually talented. It has been the season of comebacks. The league has been unpredictable, with recent division champions falling away and longtime underperformers rising in unison. During an ordinary year, Sean Payton leading the his team to the top of the conference would make him the stone-cold front-runner. Yet in this wild and thrilling year, he's competing with several other exceptional candidates.

Here is how the ideal vote should look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors adore QBs. This is a tradition. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you fix a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his special ability. Since midseason onward, the Bears sit at fourth in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a lucky run – it's prolonged excellence. Under his guidance, the quarterback has become increasingly decisive, less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than improvising. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball ground attack, a steady dose of play-action passes and a imaginative passing attack that frees wide receiver targets everywhere. Williams has capitalized. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to spin big plays from broken plays.

Johnson arrived to Chicago with a specific offensive vision. Almost each gamble – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, turning Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a coach who entered the organization with the immense pressure he did. For consecutive straight offseasons, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a ordinary season, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But this isn't a typical campaign!

The area where his case comes a bit into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously fickle. Defensive minds can focus on creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is legitimate. He's not higher because luck is doing too much of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several wins worse off. It's been an exceptional turnaround, and the core is in place for sustained success. But Johnson comes up short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable situation to Johnson. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a swift turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest overall ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defense that now sits at fifth in the league in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, Coen has mastered the leadership aspects, which was not a certainty after his initial public appearances and some of his offseason decisions.

Coen walked into Jacksonville with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but frequently collapses in practice – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and all elements together.

After an initial strong beginning, there was a possibility that the season would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the team stumbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he streamlined the approach. The offense stopped pursuing home-run answers and started hunting consistent ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three playoff seed. Coen gets the slightest knock in the standings because he inherited a talented roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. Through the middle point of the season, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has regressed since that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him only a single spot ahead of peers.

Still