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Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor follows a straightforward script. It often serves as a type of mea culpa. We regret we misjudged your franchise in our preseason predictions.

In theory, it's a clear-cut trajectory: the coach who orchestrated the biggest turnaround wins the award. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely rewarding superior coaching or merely the most shocking surprise.

But this year's race is distinctly unique. The pool of nominees is exceptionally deep. It has been the campaign of resurgences. The league has been chaotic, with reigning conference winners fading and longtime strugglers improving collectively. During an typical season, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the top of the conference would make him the clear front-runner. But in this wild and entertaining season, he's facing several other outstanding coaches.

This is how the projected vote ought to shake out.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, 11-5

Voters for Coach of the Year voters adore signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you transform a franchise QB, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely corrected his young quarterback; he's freed him. Given a proper system, Williams has been afforded the chance to showcase his rare talent. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a brief surge – it's consistent performance. Under Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less careless, and has eagerly surrendered to the scheme instead of freelancing. It is an offense designed solely in Johnson's image: a physical ground attack, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a innovative passing attack that creates wide-open targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when openings haven't been there, he's been able to spin magic out of broken plays.

Johnson came to the Bears with a clear offensive blueprint. Almost every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, utilizing the pass-catchers, turning Williams into a rhythm passer – has paid off. That's uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon still for a coach who entered the organization with the immense pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the top name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a head coach, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, Johnson has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive dork but the kind of culture builder that can breathe new life into an organization.

In a typical season, he would be the overwhelming choice. Yet the current is not a normal year!

Where his case runs slightly unstuck is on the defensive side. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on takeaways, and turnovers are notoriously unreliable. Coaches can emphasise creating turnovers, but nobody can ensure it. Johnson is on the list because the offense is legitimate. He's not higher because variance is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term success. However Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to his counterpart. He's a fellow first-time head coach who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defense that now sits at number five in the NFL in EPA per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which wasn't a certainty following his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the perfect coaching cocktail of new ideas and experience, Coen trusted first-timers. From the head coach on down to assistants to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often collapses in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everybody is learning a new job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and everything together.

After an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would veer off the rails. A midseason setback had the Jags stumbling again. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Rather, he streamlined things. The offense stopped pursuing home-run plays and started hunting reliable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the ground attack, and asked Lawrence to use his legs more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won multiple games consecutively and will be the AFC's number three seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the rankings because he took over a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

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

Every Strong of the Year argument has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative play-caller might have derailed the season in October. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the year, the new QB was an MVP contender. He has fallen away after that hot streak, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per pass attempt over the second half of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of peers.

Still