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Usually, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year award adheres to a simple pattern. It commonly acts as a kind of apology. Our apologies we underestimated your franchise in our pre-campaign projections.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who oversaw the biggest turnaround receives the prize. In reality, it fuels an annual argument about expectations and whether we're truly rewarding excellent leadership or simply the greatest shock.

However the current race is profoundly different. The list of contenders is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with recent conference winners fading and recent underperformers improving together. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the conference would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this chaotic and entertaining season, he's up against multiple other elite candidates.

Below is how the hypothetical vote could shake out.

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

Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. They always have. Sean McVay in 2017. Another in 2020. A third in 2022. Should you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right environment, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. From midseason onward, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a lucky run – it's prolonged performance. Under Johnson, the quarterback has become more decisive, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme rather than improvising. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open receivers consistently. Williams has thrived. And when openings haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Almost every gamble – overhauling the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the head coaching market. But when it comes to hiring a head coach, there are no sure things. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a typical year, Johnson would be the overwhelming favorite. Yet this is not a typical season!

The area where his candidacy comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. He is on the ballot because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because variance is doing an outsized share of the defensive heavy lifting. If not for a couple breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But he comes up just short here.

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

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more notably, he has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a given following his initial public introduction and some of his offseason decisions.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who surrounded themselves with the ideal staff cocktail of new ideas and experience, he hired first-timers. From the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with rookies. That kind of approach is exciting on paper, but often collapses in practice – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an early hot start, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A midseason collapse had the Jags stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined the approach. Jacksonville stopped pursuing explosive answers and started hunting consistent ones. The coach recentered the offense around his playmakers and the ground attack, and encouraged his QB to use his legs more often.

The results are obvious. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, Their Record

Each Strong of the Year case has a pivotal moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback move.

Parting ways from a veteran, bringing in a new signal-caller and partnering him with an new offensive coordinator could have derailed the campaign in October. Instead, it defined it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has regressed after that hot streak, dropping to 23rd in efficiency per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still