One Big Thing: Surprising Jaguars and Liam Coen Now Hit Playoffs with Swagger

Hours after the Jaguars had clinched an AFC South title Sunday night, Ashley Coen, wife of first-year Jacksonville head coach Liam Coen, posted a photo on social media.

She stood smiling on the sidelines, proudly wearing a jaguar-print-lined jacket and a black T-shirt that said in block letters: WE'RE COEN TO THE PLAYOFFS.

"Oh, that was cool, man," Coen said Monday. "It's cool for Ashley to have fun with it, and it was really well made. I was like, man, there's tags on it and everything. This is something you could sell or something. So that was pretty cool."

Coen, still only 40 years old after flipping Jacksonville from 4-13 in 2024 to 13-4 in his first season, admitted he did not have the same shirt himself, and probably would not at any point.

"I do not," he said. "Yeah, I do not. I'm not a bedazzled type. More of a no-logo kind of type going, but no, my wardrobe is definitely not that blingy."

His team, however? Fairly bedazzling. They got nine more wins than last year, which is the single-biggest uptick in franchise history, and fitting Merriam-Webster's definition for the word (brilliantly colorful, bright or impressive). 

They gained seven wins in 2017 when a young defense got a surprising Jaguars team to the AFC Championship Game and a fourth-quarter lead on Tom Brady, but that disappeared quickly, with losing records the next four years. They gained six wins in 2022, when quarterback Trevor Lawrence guided them to a division title and wild-card win, but they lost to the Chiefs and missed the playoffs the next two years.

But these Jaguars, the Coen Jaguars, one win shy of the franchise record, they might be different. For the people of Jacksonville, for Duval County — in Coen's introductory presser, he attempted their signature DUUUUUUUUVAL chant, a sign he was all-in from the start — this is a phenomenon you could buy into. 

That Coen would help Jacksonville's offense isn't surprising. In his only season as the Bucaneers' offensive coordinator, Tampa Bay ranked in the top five in yards, points, rushing and passing. The Jaguars jumped from 26th to sixth in total offense this year, from 25th to 11th in scoring offense, going from 18.8 points per game to 27.9, an increase of nearly 50 percent. Lawrence, 26 and in his fifth NFL season, threw for 4,007 yards and a career-high 29 touchdowns while rushing for career highs with 359 yards and nine touchdowns.

Jacksonville's defense, swarming under first-year coordinator Anthony Campanile, took even bigger strides. The Jaguars ranked last in the NFL with nine total takeaways in 2024, but finished second this year with 31. They ranked dead last in passing yards allowed per play, but now rank sixth; they went from a bottom-five scoring defense to allowing the eighth-fewest points. Linebacker Devin Lloyd and safety Antonio Johnson each had five interceptions, including a pick-six.

The Jaguars have done all of this without getting much from what was supposed to be the biggest splash of all. In April, they traded away the No. 5 pick, their second-round pick and next year's first-rounder to get cornerback/receiver Travis Hunter, touted as a rare two-way NFL star. Hunter had modest returns, catching 28 passes for 298 yards and a touchdown and totaling 15 tackles on defense before he sustained a season-ending knee injury just seven games into the season.

Jacksonville was active in addressing his absence, sending the Raiders a fourth- and sixth-round pick to get receiver Jakobi Meyers, who caught 42 passes in nine games with three touchdown receptions. He was to be a free agent in March, but the Jaguars have already signed him to a three-year, $60 million extension.

For the Jaguars players, there's already an appreciation of how far they've come in a year, overshadowed by an excitement of what still could come if they can continue to play at a high level.

"It's a great feeling," Lloyd said Monday. "This time last year, we were obviously packing our lockers up. Now, even headed into last week, you knew you had more ball ahead of you. It's like man, this season's not even close to being over in our eyes. So it's a great feeling, it's something we work for, but at the same time it's starting to really heat up now, so nothing has to change. It's just more so, we’ve got to take advantage of every day."

Jakobi Meyers has proved to be an invaluable in-season addition for the Jaguars. (Photo by David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Coen has seen so much advancement and growth in the past year that he's gone from coordinator to a head coach so successful that he's now at risk of losing his young coordinators. Campanile, 43, and offensive coordinator Grant Udinski, only 30, should both get interviews for head coaching openings, especially if Jacksonville makes any kind of playoff run.

"You want those opportunities, though, for guys on your staff. It's hard," Coen said Monday. "It's not something you look forward to having to ever replace. But I was really fortunate to be in that situation last year and you want to support those guys throughout that process, even though it might hurt you in the long run a little bit. It might hurt you in some ways, but that's why we're in this profession is to help guys get opportunities to grow this game to be able to do those things and you’ve got to keep hiring good people."

So now the Jaguars are "Coen to the playoffs," and while the head coach has a low-key wardrobe, his postgame rhetoric has a healthy dose of bling and swagger.

When Jacksonville went into Denver and won 34-20, handing the AFC top-seeded Broncos their only home loss of the season, he said he was "just thankful that a small-market team like us can come into a place like Mile High and get it done." In the days before the game, Broncos coach Sean Payton had said of Jacksonville that "it's a smaller market, but you see a real good team," and Coen saw a chance to back his ever-growing population of fans.

Jacksonville would need a strong playoff run to get back to Denver. The Jaguars first must handle the wild-card Bills and quarterback Josh Allen, who come in as road favorites in Jacksonville on Sunday. Last season, the two teams met and it wasn't pretty, with the Bills leading 34-3 at halftime behind four Allen touchdown passes and cruising to a 47-10 win.

"No, I’m not looking at that game," Coen said Monday when asked if he'll watch it, either for scouting or motivation.

Trevor Lawrence has been one of the NFL's top quarterbacks over the last couple of months thanks to Liam Coen's tutelage. (Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

Bills head coach Sean McDermott knows what it's like to make the playoffs as a first-year coach. He did so with Buffalo in 2017, and they made the same trip to Jacksonville and lost to the Jaguars in the wild-card round. He cited the addition of Meyers, whom he faced nine times when the receiver was with the Patriots, as an example of how actively the Jaguars have worked to get better on offense this season.

"Good football team, talented football team," McDermott said Monday. "They're playing well, playing at a high level in all three phases. A team that we played last season, but the team overall has changed. The complexion of the team, some of the roster has changed as well ... They take the ball away defensively, they do a great job with their special teams, creating field position and scoring points. It's a heck of a football team."

Allen is a former MVP who has played in 13 playoff games, winning seven of them. The AFC's top three teams all have quarterbacks with little or no playoff experience. Lawrence has two games, one win, and Denver's Bo Nix and New England's Drake Maye are in their second NFL seasons, with one playoff loss between them.

This year's playoffs, much like the 2025 season, are loaded with exciting coaches in their first year with their teams. Coen and Chicago's Ben Johnson are in their first year as head coaches, and veteran Mike Vrabel found success in his first season in New England.

The Jaguars, like their coach, are young and begging to be underestimated. Coen's popularity has come not only from the scoreboard and the standings, but videos of his postgame speeches, showing how well he's connected with his team and how much he enjoys celebrating with players. More of that jubilation is what he and his team seek now.

"Not many better places, honestly," Coen said of a post-win locker room. "A lot of work goes into this preparation, a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of physical, emotional, mental time and energy goes into this thing. And to see the players enjoy moments ... that was something we talked about Saturday night in the team meeting was to stay in the moment, to enjoy every moment of that game yesterday. Every play, every single second of the game is its own moment and to stay in the moment, to live in the moment and then to enjoy the moment. And knowing that there's a lot of work to be done, nothing is truly finished right now. 

"I think that a lot of our players said that yesterday is there's still a lot of work to do right now and really it gets amplified at this moment, but to enjoy yesterday. That was cool to see the players and everybody juiced up."

Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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