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The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are now cast in the role of the jilted lover. Tampa Bay was thrilled about bringing Liam Coen back as their offensive coordinator in 2025. Instead, Coen abandoned the Buccaneers’ organization. Now the Buccaneers are not going to let Jaguars head coach Liam Coen ransack their coaching staff.
Tampa Bay blocked a request from Jacksonville to interview assistant offensive line coach Brian Picucci, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Picucci left Kentucky with Liam Coen to go to Tampa Bay.
Coen clearly wants to bring a few of his former assistants along with him in Jacksonville. However, the Buccaneers seem determined to stop this from happening.
This is not the first time this has happened. Earlier this week, the Buccaneers denied a separate request from the Jaguars to interview offensive line coach Kevin Carberry.
Tampa Bay has every right to be angry. Coen verbally agreed to remain with the Buccaneers on what would have made him the highest-paid coordinator in NFL history. Todd Bowles was rumored to have felt a “significant amount of concern” about losing Coen, which likely played a role in offering the massive contract.
Instead, Coen left the Buccaneers hanging and went behind their backs to sign a lucrative head coaching contract in Jacksonville.
There is clearly bad blood between Coen and the Buccaneers.
Jacksonville and Tampa Bay do not play each other in 2025, unless they meet in the preseason or the Super Bowl. It will be interesting to see if there’s still animosity whenever Coen’s Jaguars play the Buccaneers for the first time.
One secret meeting between Coen and the Jaguars was the final nail in the coffin.
Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated outlined the suspicious circumstances of Coen’s clandestine meeting with Jacksonville in a recent article.
Breer explains how Coen verbally agreed to Tampa’s extension offer. Shortly afterward, the Jaguars fired GM Trent Baalke. This changed the situation for Coen, who did not show up to sign his new contract with the Buccaneers on Wednesday night or Thursday morning.
“During the 5 p.m. hour [Thursday], Coen called Bowles and told him he was still dealing with his personal matter. He also told him that things had materially changed in Jacksonville, and that he was going to travel there to explore the opening,” Breer reported. “Within an hour of that phone call, a Bucs staffer got tipped off by someone in the Jaguars’ facility that Coen was already in the building.”
It did not take long after that. Within hours of that meeting, Coen officially became the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Now the Buccaneers have to move on and find a new offensive coordinator.
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