Press Pass | Liam Coen on Team Makeup, Outlook Heading into Week 14

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Hey, Coach, how are you doing?

Liam Coen (0:02)

Good, how are you?

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

Coach, this team could have gone in one particular direction after the loss to the Rams and after the loss in Houston. Why did it go in the opposite direction? What is it about the makeup of this team and maybe your staff that enabled them to put that behind them and move forward and do what they've done to this point?

Liam Coen (0:24)

You know, I think that as we've gotten closer as a team and with the staff, you know, everybody being fairly new, that there's a lot of trying to prove, you know, prove it in a lot of ways, right? There's a lot of people that are first timers and some of their roles and responsibilities. And then there's a lot of guys that are, have been here maybe on the team in prior years that are attempting to change the narrative and to create our own and show that hey, man, like we do have talent and it's more about, there's a lot of talented teams in this league, but how you respond through adversity, how you continue to show up to work every day and get off the mat, you know, and get off the mat after tough losses and come back ready to play. And I think it's pretty cool to see. It's trying to go 1-0 every week and see what happens. But I think our process throughout the weeks, our leadership throughout in the building with these guys, the coaches and players doing it together, I think has probably been, have something to do with that, is the collaboration between players and coaches being on the same page about where we're trying to go and what our goals are, I think has maybe led to some of the connection and belief that we've had throughout some tough times.

SPEAKER_1 (1:54)

And was it also in the tough times, was it accountability but not dwelling too much on what happened in the past and not playing blame games?

Liam Coen (2:03)

Yeah, that's a great point. We talked a lot about that, actually, about there's a fine line between accountability and almost self-loathe, right? Like you put so much, like it's one thing to take accountability, but when you start to put too much on yourself, whether it's a player or a coach, that can go in a wrong direction as well, because then you start to go down rabbit holes that anybody in life will go down when you have maybe bad things happen. And the players and coaches' ability, I think, to, all right, man, like that was on us, that was on me, whoever it was individually. And then like, let's just get it fixed and move on, right? Like it's not, we always talk about trying to coach the play and not always the player, right? Like everybody can learn from a mistake. It's not, you're not gonna get benched because you make a mistake, right? Like we also need to give ourselves grace through a long NFL season that people can learn from and grow from. I think that's kind of the important message. Thank you. Thank you.

Shipley (3:22)

We'll go to D-Rock, then to Jamal.

D-Rock (3:26)

Hey Liam, Trevor had a lot of success throwing in the middle of the field yesterday, seemed to be a little bit more than maybe at earlier points of season. Was that just game plan stuff or was that just him being a little bit more confident in the guys that he's got in the middle of the field?

Liam Coen (3:41)

Yeah, I think you guys said kind of something similar for the Chargers, right? It was the over the middle success kind of two weeks ago. So it's not anything new. It was just their coverages. They played a lot of cover two, a lot of two Tampa. And coverage typically dictates where you're trying to attack people. So it's like, you know, you don't just go into a week saying, we're going to throw the ball in the middle or throw the ball on the outside or throw the ball deep or throw the ball short. You know, coverage typically dictates, you know, where you're trying to attack and what zones and areas of the field you're trying to manipulate. And it just so happened that they were playing a little bit more soft zone in the middle of the field that we were able to take advantage of. But to your point, I thought he was much more accurate through the middle of the field, which then allowed for some catch and runs, which, you know, we haven't had a ton of, right? Like a 50-yard pass this year is, right, the longest, I think, on the season. So that was great to have some catch and run opportunities. We still have some meat on the bone that we need to go and take advantage of. But I do think that, you know, some of their coverage is dictated where ultimately we were trying to go with the football.