Liam Coen - Head Coach, jaguars Event: Press Conference | Date: 2026-09-13 | Full transcript (primary source).
On September 13, 2026, Liam Coen, Head Coach of the Jaguars, addressed the media following the team's performance in their season opener. The press conference focused on the team's execution, individual player performances, and overall strategy during the game.
Transcript
Coen: Yeah, heck of a play. Had man coverage, he had outside leverage. I think he dove down, ran a really good route, got the nickel kind of dived down and undercut him. And he ended up being pretty open, made a great catch. Had really good protection, I thought, and for the most part of the day. But was pleased with the way that we started fast, especially getting Parker going early.
Reporter: Trevor obviously had an outstanding game. What did you like about his performance?
Coen: Yeah, I thought he spread the ball around, trusted the guys that were in to make plays. Again, I thought we protected him really well. I thought we mixed it up from the run game and some different things to keep them off balance, to allow Trevor to continue to do what he does. He did some really good stuff off schedule again today, especially the touchdown to Jacoby, I thought was a phenomenal throw and play in the back of the end zone. So was definitely pleased with the way that Trevor ran the offense today.
Reporter: Liam, it feels like you never really know what you have until you go out and actually play in week one. How proud are you of the way your team played all four quarters?
Coen: Yeah, I was pleased with the way, in general, of starting fast and something that we had been really emphasizing, talking about, working on in different ways. I thought we were definitely a more physical unit. I thought our defense played phenomenal, really had the short field on the kickoff return that they busted out past the 50 and held them to three points and then they get the big one at the end there. But I really thought our defense came to play and made our kicks. We got to clean up some things on kickoff.
Reporter: Liam, it's been a while since you've been in the same place two years in a row. Is there comfort in that continuity or do you feel like you're building something here? This is the first step.
Coen: Yeah, I think there was some good things to continue to build on. I definitely felt like when you go back, as I did this week in Watch Carolina, week one, versus what we were able to come out here and do in terms of putting it away and making it our brand of football and not playing somebody else's game, playing our game, I think that's something that, as we grow together and as we continue to know about each other more and more and trust each other more and more as coaches and players alike, that you can try to play your brand and play your style of football game as much as possible.
Reporter: Coach, along the same lines of that sort of big buzzword in pro sports right now is the standard. I know you've used it a lot here as well. You get a performance like this on tape. What is that going to do for your team's confidence that you can, hey, point to this game, that's our standard?
Coen: Yeah, I think there's a lot of good things that we can point to from this game in terms of being more physical. We play at our best as a team here in Jacksonville when we're playing grimy, physical, nasty, and we're flying around with relentless pursuit, and that's in all three phases. That's setting the tone up front on the offensive line and playing nasty and getting after it. Our backs, I thought, did a great job after contact today. Obviously, I think we tackled pretty well, fairly well. I thought we got after the quarterback. And look, when you have a group of guys that are hungry, wanting to get a bad taste out of their mouth with the first time them playing a game since obviously Buffalo, yeah, you're trying to elevate the standard every single week.
Reporter: Liam, you've turned the page from a year ago. The carryover would be nine straight regular season wins. How different is it for you knowing that your team knows how to win again? You had a lead last year, you were third in the NFL and most offensive snaps with the lead. How different in a year?
Coen: Yeah, that's a good point in terms of like, I told the guys last night, I know I'm gonna sleep really good on Saturday night knowing that every single Sunday, I'm not really too concerned if our team's gonna show up or not. Do we, is it gonna always be perfect? I can't say that. But I do know that our team's gonna show up on any given Sunday and play their tails off and hopefully play our brand of football. And yeah, it's good to know that you've got guys that are bought in, they're all together. I think our locker room is extremely tight right now. And look, it was a spread around game, like it was a true team win. And I think that that's where you can point to the standard and point to having confidence in each other to be able to go out and spread the ball around like we did.
Coen: Josh Cameron catches the touchdown and then it's like on the next drive, I'm like, all right, I wanna get Brenton involved. And then on that drive, he catches the touchdown. So I have confidence in them. They have confidence, I think, in what they're doing and hopefully it continues to carry over.
Reporter: You mentioned earlier in the week just the trust you have in the rookies. I mean, Josh kept making that play one of his first snaps on the field. What'd that say to you?
Coen: Man, that was a heck of a throw by Trevor as well, threading the needle. But man, Josh has continued to put that on tape. He's done it for us all throughout training camp, really, making contested tough catches. Even when he's covered, the quarterbacks do trust him to put it in his vicinity and he's gonna make a play. I thought BT had some contested catches as well today that I was pleased to see. But yeah, for Josh to be able to come out here in his first NFL real action, minus the preseason, and catch a touchdown on a contested catch, then he had the comeback on our sideline that I thought he ran a really good route on Ward on. And that's gotta give him a ton of confidence moving forward.
Reporter: Can you expand on what you liked from Bachel?
Coen: Yeah, man, like I mentioned, the yards after contact, I was very pleased with. I thought he trusted the Reeds. He was getting outside on some of the outside zones. Probably could've got to some more of that as the game went, but I thought he ran nasty. I thought he ran violent. He took some shots and kept his contact balance going and was falling forward a lot. I was very pleased with him. We executed a screen to him as well, which, whew. But yeah, I thought Bachel really showed up today. I thought the confidence and the momentum that he had from Carolina to Tampa to this showed up. It showed up in the week of practice. It showed up in his preparation and then, again, showed up today.
Reporter: Real quick on Trevor. He's kinda notoriously started slow. What did you do today to make sure that that didn't happen?
Coen: Yeah, look, I mean, we've been pressing it so much. In practice, it really started to kinda show itself from an improvement standpoint, I think, in the Tampa joint, really, when we got the first play and had the touchdown in that joint. But really, I think we communicated to him and to the players our opening script earlier in the week. Like, we got more to some of the, being ahead in game one, it allowed us to jump ahead a little bit in terms of, all right, Friday, we were practicing more of the openers. And what are the things that we wanted to get to early on? He had a great grasp of the plan on Friday when we did our meeting and our call sheet meeting on Friday and Saturday. So I think we were just a little bit more intentional. The time helped. So that's something we need to make sure carries over, that we can continue to get ahead of as a staff within the normal work prep weeks. But I think he just had a really good grasp of how to attack this defensive structure early on, the things that we wanted to get to early on. And it was nice to see him starting to move around early on, too. I think that's a huge part of his game that he can lean into, especially early on in a game. All right, you're not exactly sure what you're gonna see, what you're getting. Hey, man, go be you and go run around. That typically helps.
Coen: Great. Thanks, guys.
