Press Pass | Liam Coen Reflects on Jaguars' Progress Through Week 16

John Shipley (0:00)

One, we have head coach Liam Coen available. Please raise your hand if you have a question.

Mark Long (0:07)

We can start off with Jamal.

John Shipley (0:11)

What's up, coach?

Jamal (0:11)

How you doing?

Liam Coen (0:12)

Good, thank you. How are you?

Jamal (0:14)

Pretty good. Can you think back a little bit for me, maybe during the off season, early in the season, was there a point when you thought to yourself something happened and you said, I might have something special here with this group?

Liam Coen (0:30)

I'm trying to think of anything specific.

I would say in training camp, we had some pretty physical practices throughout training camp where we got after each other pretty good, and a few because we only had the one joint, right? So, we did have some more physical practices against each other. You know, wasn't your... It was probably one of the more physical training camps I've been a part of in terms of being in the NFL. And that was something that I looked at at the time that nobody was complaining or, you know, like, why are we hitting? Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? The guys just kept coming to work every day and practicing their tails off. And I remember at that time thinking, all right, I think this group's going to be tough, right? Like, I think this group's going to have a mindset. You know, you're eager to see it against another opponent. But there was a time during training camp that I think as a coaching staff, we appreciated how hard these guys practiced, how intentional they were about the work every day, and the energy they brought to practice, right? Like, it's hard to go against each other for that many days in the heat in Jacksonville with very limited ops against going against somebody else, right? Like, you're not you're only preseason games. They didn't nobody complained about playing in preseason games. It was just a group at a very early stage, I think, that just didn't question. They just kept playing and just kept competing. And you don't know too much about your team at that point. But I do recall thinking that this is going to be a tough team.

Jamal (2:31)

Gotcha. Coach, your motivational style. I don't know that there's a lot of coaches around the league that that gets their team going quite like you do. Was there a coach that influenced you along the way? Was it the way your dad coached watching him? I mean, was there is there someone that influenced the way I guess you deal with the team relate to the locker room? Or is that just your personality coming through?

Liam Coen (2:54)

You know, I think I've been very fortunate to have worked with or under some really good football coaches that, yeah, it all started with my dad first and foremost, you know, just growing up at a young age, seeing tough Division III Northeast football where, you know, they didn't have lights at their field. They parked cars and put the lights on other cars so that they could practice, you know, in the evening. And, you know, my, our family was getting coal cuts for their travel for games to go on the road and eat sandwiches. And they were getting dressed in their dorms for games. And so it was just, you know, that was really where it all probably started.

And then coaching in the Northeast for Phil Estes, Mark Whipple, and Don Brown, playing for Don Brown, a lot of, these are tough, hard-nosed football coaches that, you know, resilience, toughness, effort, all those things kind of matter. And we were never overly talented or more talented, maybe, than some of the teams we're always playing. And our edge needed to be, you know, toughness and mentality. And so I think just being fortunate enough to grow up in that atmosphere and have that be my early years in coaching, having a lot of great mentors and leaders that I was able to work for.

Jamal (4:31)

Thanks, Liam.

Liam Coen (4:31)

Thank you.

Jamal (4:33)

We'll go to Mark Long, then to Mia.

Mark Long (4:37)

Yeah, hey, Liam. Parker had five of his six catches came on third down, and you alluded to yesterday that was part of the game plan. Was that just it was all match up? You knew who he was going to be on coming out of the slot and then go from there?

Liam Coen (4:52)

That's right. Yeah.

Mark Long (4:53)

Okay.

Liam Coen (4:54)

Figured, you know, that it was a great opportunity from some of the matchups that we felt like that was beneficial for us, and that he was really feeling better coming off the injury a couple weeks back or whatever it was, that he was getting back to full strength and feeling a lot better. He had a great week of practice, and it showed out yesterday, right? So much of the run after catch, we've all seen that numerous times this season, whether it be on offense or in the punt return game. So that was a matchup thought process going into the game.