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Typically, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year trophy follows a straightforward pattern. It often serves as a kind of mea culpa. We regret we got wrong your franchise in our preseason predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the largest resurgence receives the prize. In practice, it creates an yearly discussion about preseason outlooks and whether we're genuinely honoring excellent coaching or just the greatest upset.

However the latest competition is profoundly unique. The group of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the year of turnarounds. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent conference winners falling away and longtime strugglers ascending collectively. In an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the top of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a chaotic and entertaining year, he's competing with several other outstanding candidates.

Below is how the projected vote ought to be structured.

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

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. This is a tradition. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just corrected Caleb Williams; he's freed him. Within an ideal ecosystem, Williams has been given the chance to display his otherworldly talent. From Week 9, the Bears rank number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's consistent performance. With Johnson, Williams has become more confident, less careless, and has willingly submitted to the scheme instead of going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a imaginative aerial game that creates wide receiver targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when clear throws haven't been there, he's been able to spin big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Virtually every bet – overhauling the trenches, highlighting the pass-catchers, transforming the QB into a timing-based thrower – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie skipper. And it's rarer yet for a leader who walked into the building with the level of hype he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching carousel. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Remarkably, he has lived up to the hype – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not just to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can breathe new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary year, he would be the runaway favorite. But the current isn't a typical season!

The area where his case runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, 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 defense's work. With a few breaks of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained winning. But Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, Their Record

Coen is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow rookie head coach who has engineered a swift turnaround. Over the stretch run of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the league in Expected Points Added per play.

What's more impressively, he has nailed the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his early public introduction and some of his preseason decisions.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to other coaches, who surrounded their staff with the perfect coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen trusted newbies. Starting with the leader on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That type of setup is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everyone is figuring out a new job on the fly. But he has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an initial strong start, there was a chance that the campaign would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's usually when leaders overcorrect. He did not. Rather, he simplified things. The offense stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking reliable ones. The coach refocused the attack around his playmakers and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The outcomes are clear. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. Coen gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can get the most out of that talent.

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

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

Moving on from a veteran, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an new play-caller might have ended the season in October. Instead, it defined it. By the middle point of the year, the new QB was an MVP candidate. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in efficiency per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him just a single spot ahead of peers.

Still