Big Cat Country
To get a feel for how the Jacksonville Jaguars are viewed around the league, here’s a look at a handful of national media power rankings.
All the talk has been about head coach Liam Coen helping Trevor Lawrence. The biggest help might be that Coen will fix the Jags’ run game. Jacksonville rushed for 200 yards on 6.3 yards per carry in a decisive win over the Panthers. Suddenly, the entire offense isn’t on Lawrence’s shoulders.
They ran the ball, the defense took it away and Trevor Lawrence looked comfortable in beating Carolina. It was a good first game for new coach Liam Coen.
O.K. Time to admit I was wrong, which I will do about 300 times this season. On the initial watch, I did not get the Travis Hunter Week 1 hype and I thought that manufacturing some of those touches slowed the offense down—especially a really well-designed running game. Upon further review, he’s dynamic and has defenses very curious. Even having Hunter flash hands at the line of scrimmage draws defenders away from a run and helps Travis Etienne at the second level. Liam Coen is a next-level play designer.
WR/CB Travis Hunter is and will be a fine player. But we’re going on record now to opine that surrendering a future first- and second-rounder to get him is a deal that won’t age well.
From Josh Kendall and Chad Graff:
The expectation is that Liam Coen unlocks something more from Lawrence, the No. 1 pick in the 2021 draft. On Sunday, Lawrence was the NFL’s least-pressured quarterback. He has a No. 1 wide receiver in Brian Thomas. The Jags ran it well, too. But Lawrence was still just 19-of-31 for 178 yards with a touchdown and an interception. That’s not the ‘something more’ Jags fans were hoping for.
Lawrence never stopped being talented, even when the wheels were falling off in Jacksonville the past couple of years. Injuries and awful decision-making under pressure previously kept him from maximizing his skill set. But on Sunday, Lawrence was sharp—he delivered the ball with accuracy at every level of the field and got it out of his hands before pressure could affect him.
Throwing darts against the Panthers secondary isn’t a mind-blowing achievement, but I needed to see that Lawrence could execute head coach Liam Coen’s offense. Now the question is whether he can build on that success.
The 2024 Jaguars held the lowly Titans to six points and somehow kept the Vikings out of the end zone, but last season’s defensive highlight reel doesn’t extend too far beyond that. Even if it came against a...
