New coach Coen wants Jags ‘playing on the edge’​on January 28, 2025 at 1:43 am

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — New Jacksonville Jaguars coach Liam Coen knows exactly what he wants out of his team: Play fast, be fundamentally sound, have an attack mentality, be good at situational football and be mentally and physically tough.

Coen then elaborated on that last category, which he intimated might be the most important of all when it comes to culture and identity, two things that were notably missing in 2024: “I want savages.”

That certainly wasn’t the way you’d describe the 2024 Jaguars, a team that went 3-10 in one-score games (the most such losses in a single season in the Super Bowl era), finished 31st in total defense, forced the fewest turnovers in the league and finished 25th in the NFL in point differential.

One of Coen’s top priorities is getting that flipped.

“Just that physical mindset. When our opponents turn on the tape, what are they looking at? Are they seeing guys playing through the echo of the whistle?” Coen told reporters Monday afternoon following his introductory news conference. “You might get a flag or two early on. Man, hey, let’s pull back a little. OK, here we go. But I want them playing on the edge. It’s a violent game. They have to be that way. I want them to play that way. So that’s where it starts. If we can get that out of these guys, I think we’ll be moving in the right direction.”

Among the Jaguars’ issues that resulted in a 4-13 record and owner Shad Khan’s decision to fire coach Doug Pederson: lacking a strong identity, strong vocal leadership in the locker room and on-field discipline. In the limited conversations he has had with several Jaguars players — notably quarterback Trevor Lawrence and defensive end Josh Hines-Allen — Coen said improving on those elements was a priority for them in 2025, too.

“I heard guys that are yearning for more,” Coen said. “Just more culture, more unity, more communication, just everybody being on the same page, a true aligned vision, and for everybody to be able to tell each other some hard truths in ways and see each other’s blind spots and communicate those. That’s where the growth occurs, and that’s what it sounded like they’re yearning for.

“They want more responsibility on both sides of the balls, but with a clear vision. They want to be able to be coached hard but understand that it’s coming from the right place and there’s a trust and an honesty there.”

Coen, 39, also talked about his flip-flop from remaining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers‘ offensive coordinator with a significant raise that would have made him one of the highest-paid coordinators, to taking an interview with Khan the following day, saying he felt like the opportunity in Jacksonville was one he couldn’t pass up.

Khan said he felt the same way about Coen during the interview process. After spending several hours with Coen, Khan said he knew Coen was the right hire to not only change the culture in Jacksonville, but to help Lawrence play more consistently high-level football.

“Our commitment to Trevor, I think it’s well known that we believe in him. So, it started with that,” Khan said. “That was the fundamental question, really, to all the candidates. How would they do it? After we got done with that, it was very evident to me that Liam was the guy. I had never met Liam until the process started, but I had heard about him quite a bit over the last year.

“… As we went through the process it was absolutely compelling, he’s the right guy for us.”

Coen, who confirmed he will be calling plays, has already started compiling his staff, signing special teams coordinator Heath Farwell to a three-year contract extension. Farwell spent the past three seasons with the Jaguars and has produced a Pro Bowler in all three seasons (returner Jamal Agnew, punter Logan Cooke and long-snapper Ross Matiscik).

Coen, who will be interviewing defensive coordinator candidates over the next several days, also said the same thing that Pederson said the week before he was fired: The Jaguars aren’t far away from competing for the playoffs the way they did in 2022 and 2023 before the disappointing 2024 season.

“I mentioned this to the guys, this isn’t a four-win team,” Coen said. “Yes, that is the record, but this is not a four-win team. How do we go from winning games to not losing them? I think that’s something we’ve got to address. That has got to be in our veins, in our DNA: the culture of winning.

“I’ve learned it from the Los Angeles Rams and from a ton of other great organizations on how to go win football games. I think that’s something that we have to start as a team, as a group, and show how we’re going to go do it.”