Big Cat Country
Jacksonville officially introduced Coen as their next head coach to fans and media on Monday.
The Jacksonville Jaguars held their introductory press conference at the Miller Electric Center for head coach Liam Coen on Monday. Assembled media gathered for introductions to the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator, as owner Shad Khan welcomed the franchise's eighth, full-time head coach to the stage. Early into the presser, Coen expectedly, confirmed that he will be calling plays for the offense:
“Yes, I will be calling plays. I will be calling football plays.”
Here are the top takeaways from Coen's opening media availability.
Perhaps the biggest questions following the departure of General Manager Trent Baalke and the hiring of Coen is what is next within the personnel department and front office structure? While little clarity was provided on how the structure will work moving forward or if there will be any changes there, owner Shad Khan did provide an update in the order that things may progress in the coming weeks - with the team first focusing on the staff build, then the general manager search.
“I think that date is February 28th (to have the GM search completed). I believe that’s NFL mandated. I think our priority is obviously to get Liam settled in and have him build his staff and then start the search. But we’re hoping to be done by that date.”
Additionally, Mr. Khan also confirmed that the team is currently in communication with the league, as they look into the guidelines around having a new position for Hall of Fame offensive tackle Tony Boselli, within the team’s front office.
“Well, you know, we are going to have a position and we’re checking with the league what the rules are, what we have to follow. And, you know, and then we’ll take it from there.”
In one of his best responses of the day, Coen asked aloud a key question in response to an inquiry on building out his team’s culture. How do we go from winning games to not losing them?
“This isn’t a 4-win team. Yes, that is the record. But this is not a 4-win team. Okay? How do we go from winning games to not losing them? I think that that’s something we’ve got to address. And 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. And so I think that that’s something that we have to start as a team, as a group, and show how we’re going to go do it. Straight ahead.”
As I’ve often said, a primary measure of an NFL coach is how well he does in close games. An area that significantly hampered the 2024 Jaguars’ ability to succeed was their 3-10 performance in one score games, committing untimely...
