Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen spoke on Wednesday, one day before Thursday Night Football at the Baltimore Ravens, and said the short week changes everything about how his team prepares. “Everything gets a little expedited,” he said. “A lot of the preparation as soon as Monday starts is all on Baltimore, and these guys have handled it really well.” He did not hide the toll the game takes at this point of the schedule. “Everybody in this game is going to be sore, tired. Mentally, physically, everybody feels the same exact way. Everybody’s nicked up and has to go play this game. That’s just the way it is. And so a lot of this is going to be about mental and physical toughness.”
The Jaguars are 5-2 after a 42-7 win over the Indianapolis Colts. Kickoff in Baltimore is Thursday at 8:15 p.m. ET, which is 3:15 a.m. Friday in Cairo.
Tackling, and a short week of corrections
Asked how dangerous a quick turnaround can get, Coen pointed to the basics of defense. “You’ve got to be so on your P’s and Q’s in terms of your run fits, your angles to the football, your swarm has to be elite,” he said. “Getting off blocks, not staying blocked. You can’t just throw an arm at them and that’s not going to work. It’s definitely critical.” He said he showed the team that on tape on Wednesday morning: “When we’re at our best and we’re flying around as a defense, good things usually happen.”
He said the players got Friday, Saturday and Sunday off after the Colts game, which he called “pretty standard,” and then came back for what he called “a bonus Monday.”
“The entire building”
A reporter asked how the Jaguars replace two defensive leaders at once. Coen said the answer is not limited to the people who play on Thursday. “The whole team. The whole building,” he said. “I don’t mean on Thursday night playing in the game, I mean throughout the week. I challenged them on Monday with everybody just stepping up their week a little bit more, being a great teammate a little bit more, the energy a little bit more.” He pointed to the rookies and young players, saying many were captains in college: “We need those guys to not only help us potentially in the games, but also their leadership, their energy, their being great teammates.”
He described the Colts game as a rare compounding of injuries. “You lose D Ham, Eric, Tuten gets hurt … you’ve got four starters get hurt in one game. How do you supplement that? Well, it’s through the building. It’s through the entire group. It’s not just the defensive captains or the offensive captains that need to feel the weight of that. It’s every single one of us, players, coaches and staff included, to help pick that up.”
At safety, with Eric Murray’s season over and Antonio Johnson working his way back, Coen named the group he trusts. “Antonio obviously, Merriweather, Rayuan Lane just got named AFC Defensive Player of the Week. So those three guys specifically will kind of get the load of it all,” he said, adding that different base and nickel packages can fill in the gaps. He also pointed to Jalen Huskey, who had a sack against Indianapolis. “They’re not going to get better unless they play,” Coen said. “So those guys playing is going to help us in the long run.”
On linebacker Branson Combs, who made an interception and two big special-teams hits against the Colts, he said: “Huge. Obviously competed a ton in training camp with Ventrell. Ventrell wins the job clearly and has played at a high level, but to have your third linebacker, that we have a lot of faith in, come in and make an impact on special teams the way he did, and to get the interception. The more he can do for our team, the better we’ll be.”
Boerkircher, the offensive line and Lawrence
Coen praised tight end Nate Boerkircher’s approach and his recent catches, including the 31-yard touchdown against the Colts and a catch in Houston. “He loves football. Loves to practice. Loves what goes into it,” Coen said. “He also has that good way about him that he doesn’t take everything so seriously. He can make a mistake and learn from it but also move on fairly quickly, which I think is a unique trait.”
On the offensive line, he said he expects Ezra Cleveland to be available and had good things to say about Wyatt Milum, who filled in last week. “I thought Wyatt came in and did some good things,” Coen said. “Probably opened the hole on the short-yardage run for Chris, down the pipe. Did some really good things on both screens. I was pleased with Wyatt’s ability to go in with no flinch, no blink, and play his tail off. Depth is always a good thing.”
Asked why Trevor Lawrence has been more accurate this season, Coen started with trust. “Trusting what he’s doing, belief in what he’s doing, understanding the concepts, probably more trust and belief in the guys on the perimeter and the guys he’s throwing to, and the guys in front of them that are blocking for them,” he said. “I think his feet have been pretty darn clean for the last few weeks, playing on time and in rhythm, but also when he does have to move, doing it while still having a platform to throw.”
He said Lawrence is “decisive right now,” and described a play-action throw to Chris Rodriguez Jr. in the flat: “At the top of his drop, he just knew that it wasn’t open. So he just quickly, decisively … slid up in the pocket, dumped it down to Chris. That’s playing the position, because you have so many hard throws in a game. It’s: can you make the easy ones easy? And I think that’s something we’re seeing right now.”
Asked about the offense on the road, Coen said the challenge is to keep the pace without overloading it. “Finding the balance of the motion shifts, things like that, to continue to play fast while also having the things you need in order to operate in a game,” he said. “Playing cleaner and continuing to play as clean as we’re able to this past game, that’s always the challenge when you’re playing on the road.”
Why the standard works
Asked why the next-man-up approach has worked in Jacksonville, Coen credited honesty about roles. “The consistency in messaging always helps when you’re on the same page and understand what the standard is,” he said. “Being honest about roles and responsibilities, being honest about the moment too without it feeling like it’s pressure. It’s the NFL. Nobody cares. These guys get paid to do the job and they care about the job.” Whether a player starts every week, is elevated from the practice squad or is on injured reserve, he said, the goal is that “you’re involved, you’re a big part of what we’re doing,” which “maybe helps guys believe in themselves when they do have to step up and give us meaningful reps.”
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