JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Liam Coen spent most of Monday morning trying to get the Jaguars to stop making mistakes.
Jacksonville’s preseason opener revealed quite a few things that it has to get figured out before the Carolina Panthers come to town to kick off the regular season on Sept. 7.
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The starting defense barely offered resistance against Pittsburgh’s backups, something Coen said needed to improve. Trevor Lawrence and the starting offense produced a field on its lone drive of the game, but that’s something that happened far too often in the past. For Coen, the coaching staff can only do so much. It’s the players who have to clean up mistakes.
“Ultimately, we’re not playing the game as coaches. We can only say so much at some point; the players do need to take the ownership of being out there. So much of what we talked about is until we kind of don’t beat ourselves, then we’re not going to probably be able to consistently beat anybody.”
Jaguars training camp content
Lawrence’s progression is key to the season. Coen said that he thought Lawrence played well against the Steelers in an abbreviated appearance, going 6 of 7 for 43 yards. Lawrence needs to do it more consistently than he has in the past, but his showing against Pittsburgh was a small positive for the team.
“It was solid. He went out and did his job. The one, to BT [WR Brian Thomas Jr.] was something that was kind of a scheme error in a way. He could maybe see that safety and move on and progress,” Coen said. “Don’t force it in there, but that was also a crappy play call. So, I’ll take some of that one, but I thought he operated well, and we didn’t ask him to go and do too much, but it was just solid from an operation standpoint for sure.”
Monday was a different type of camp day for the Jaguars. Instead of going through the typical periods that it has many days, Coen had the Jaguars go through entire periods of the day repeating formations and snaps without ever running the play to completion. The staff tried to hammer home the basics and get players on both sides of the ball to tidy up issues like jumping offsides. The Jaguars were flagged on their first offensive and first defense snap of the game, two of their eight penalties in the game.
“It was disappointing to see some of the communication errors that we did have, but also just alignment-assignment issues. We have new systems on both sides of the ball,” Coen said. “It’s going to probably take a little bit more than a preseason game to maybe correct some of the things that we wanted to get corrected and play as sound as we would like to play.”
Edge rusher Travon Walker said Jacksonville’s defensive lapses were the result being a bit too flat footed as a unit.
“Speaking on that first drive specifically, they definitely caught us with some tempo. I feel like that’s where that came into play at practice today,” Walker said. “I feel like we did a great job at practice today and we watched the film earlier. I feel like now we just have to continuously get on the ball, be ready and be set. That way, we won’t get caught off guard like that.”
Jacksonville’s defense was among the league’s worst last year, especially through the air. The starters at cornerback should be an upgrade (Tyson Campbell and Jourdan Lewis) but safety remains a spot that’s up in the air. Coen also said Campbell is day to day with an injury.
A part of the reason for the struggles in the secondary in 2024 was the dearth of any consistent pass rush. And that’s an area that’s concerning for Jacksonville. Defensive linemen Arik Armstead and Maason Smith have been out of camp due to injuries. That’s meant more work for DaVon Hamilton, Dawaune Smoot and Emmanuel Ogbah, as well as a compilation of young and undrafted players.
With the first preseason game out of the way, Jacksonville’s march toward building out its first roster under Coen and general manager James Gladstone is coming into focus. NFL teams must have rosters trimmed from 90 to 53 by 4 p.m. on Aug. 26. Judging by the team’s initial depth chart, there don’t appear to be any major, surface level changes brewing.
The bigger decisions will come in the bottom of the roster. And don’t be surprised to see a few lesser-known players make the final 53. Jacksonville brought in 22 undrafted free agents in the offseason, and there is a strong potential for a handful of those players to make it.
“I think you feel pretty confident about maybe 50 [of the 53] or so. Then there are a couple of spots here and there that you feel like are going to probably go a couple more weeks,” Coen said.