How Jacksonville Jaguars coach Liam Coen is attacking the bye week
Jaguars coach Liam Coen covered several topics during an exclusive bye-week interview with Times-Union sports columnist Ryan O’Halloran.
- The Jacksonville Jaguars lead the NFL in penalties, which has contributed to recent losses.
- Head coach Liam Coen attributes some of the penalty issues to having a new coaching staff and players.
- During their loss to the Rams, the Jaguars were flagged for 13 enforced penalties.
While the Jacksonville Jaguars have heated rivalries with teams in the AFC South, their biggest rivalry is in the building — themselves.
The Jaguars have dropped two straight games to playoff-caliber teams within the NFC West, but their poor play and self-fulfilled losses have overshadowed much of what the other team did in those contests.
No one cares that Davante Adams got three touchdowns because the Jaguars totaled nearly 100 yards more than the Rams and scored just seven points to L.A.’s 35.
Los Angeles’ 2 of 10 third-down efficiency is quickly overshadowed by Jacksonville’s inefficiency on downs played, averaging .4 yards more than L.A. at 4.8 to 4.4, yet reaching the end zone half as many times.
The Rams weren’t the conversation after the game. Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence was asked specifically if there was anything L.A. did that the team didn’t account for, given Jacksonville’s struggle to get the ball in the end zone after moving the ball past the 50-yard line.
Eight of the team’s 11 possessions last week ended in L.A. territory. The Jaguars punted the ball twice, while they turned the ball over on downs four times, missed a field goal and scored a touchdown on the other opportunities.
“We just got beat today. Didn’t play good enough,” Lawrence said.
But, the theme of the day was simple: the Jaguars beat themselves — again, and the most damning reason for that is penalties.
Jaguars lead league in penalties
There’s no question that Jaguars head coach Liam Coen has his work cut out for him during the team’s Week 8 bye. The Jaguars are not playing as a disciplined unit, and it’s costing the team games.
Jacksonville currently leads the NFL in penalties with 65 (9.3 accepted penalties per game). RotoWire uses penalty yards per game and penalties per game to come up with a “discipline score.” According to the stats website, the Jaguars rank as the second-worst team in discipline score at 42.4, while Denver ranks first with 45.4.
Coen was quick to take the blame after the game on Sunday.
“It was everything we said we didn’t want to do did occur. So starts with me. Got to figure it out. Got a long flight home and some days off to do that,” said Coen.
Jacksonville’s 65 penalties rank third in franchise history through seven weeks. The only other times they committed more came in 2016 (66) and 1996 (73).
How Jaguars’ flags impacted loss to Rams
Here are Jacksonville’s penalties during the team’s loss to the Rams. The Jaguars were called for 13 enforced penalties, with a 14th offset by the Rams and a couple more declined by LA.
An explanation of how the penalty could have impacted the drive’s result is included in the table below:
While penalties can’t be used as an excuse for every score or nullified score, it does give some insight into how difficult the Jaguars have made their lives on both sides of the football. The same can be said about the team’s Week 6 loss to the Seattle Seahawks when they were called for 10 penalties, resulting in a 20-12 loss that included a missed field goal and a missed extra point.
Coen recently attributed the team’s penalty issues to the newness surrounding the club. A new head coach, staff and players contributed to the team’s issues. Though the first-year head coach didn’t say that was the only reason the team has been penalized so often through seven games.
“You look at the top five teams in penalties in the NFL right now, four of them are first-time head coaches. Four out of the top five right now in the NFL are first-year teams. So, you’ve got controllable penalties, you’ve got some uncontrollable, you’ve got some calls that may or may not have been, and you’ve got some really bad luck when it comes to penalties. I’m just talking about in general, right?” Coen explained ahead of the team’s Week 8 bye.
According to NFLpenalties.com, including the Jaguars, four of the top six teams in penalties have new coaches (New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys, and New Orleans Saints).
Coen explained that there are “controllables, some non-controllable, [and] there’s some bad luck” when it comes to penalties. Cleaning it up is the challenge and until then, it’ll be tough sledding for Jacksonville.
“So that’s the message and the amount of detail that all I know of how to fix this is to pour into the fundamentals and the details and the basics because it’s not like, oh, we’ve made up some new annexation of Puerto Rico play and we got a penalty on it,” said Coen. “It’s like we’re playing half field and there’s a seven-cut and we hit them before the ball gets there. We can control that, so the ones we can control by coaching and practicing and playing, that’s on us and we have to control those.”
The Jaguars aren’t the most penalized team in the league because they don’t address penalties. They have a referee crew join practice during the week every week of the season, something Coen says not every team does. The head coach said he doesn’t know how to emphasize it more. At a certain point, that can cause more harm.
“I don’t want to have, these guys playing in the back of their minds, like if I do this, I’m going to get a penalty. It’s not about that. It’s about guys, we’ve got to play cleaner,” said Coen. “We’ve got to play cleaner with our hands, with our feet, with our mind. Are we getting fatigued, physically fatigued, which is now slowing down the brain and the legs and now we’re reaching and grabbing for straws.”
Regardless of how Coen wants to address the issues, they must be resolved quickly if the Jaguars want a chance to compete in the playoffs this year.
Demetrius Harvey is the Jacksonville Jaguars reporter for the Florida Times-Union. You can follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @Demetrius82 or on Bluesky @ Demetrius.
If you’re a subscriber, thank you. If not, please consider becoming a subscriber to support local journalism in Northeast Florida.