Coen thinks Jaguars are being overlooked
Mike Florio and Chris Simms react to Liam Coen's comments about the national coverage surrounding the Jaguars, explaining why Jacksonville is "flying under the radar."
Video Transcript
Okay.
We've talked some about the burden of expectation that the Rams have, and what a challenge that creates for a head coach when everybody expects you to win.
The flip side of that, and this is a great position for a coach to be in, when your team is being overlooked, when your team is being disrespected, number one, your players don't get a big head.
There's nothing to get a big head about because nobody's telling them how great they are.
No one's talking about them.
No one's showing them the proper accolades for what they've accomplished.
So that's a bonus for a coach.
And then the other side of it is you can use it to get your players motivated.
How dare they?
They disrespect us.
They don't take us seriously.
And Liam Cohen is the energy year two in Jacksonville after a 13-win season in 2025, is fully and completely leaning into the, "How dare they not take us seriously and give us the respect that we earned last year by winning 13 games?"
Here he is from late last week on the team getting extra motivation that flows from the fact that nobody talks about the Jacksonville Jaguars.
You know, I know that you're limited, right?
I mean, there, there's In, in what you can use for motivation from week to week.
But I'll be damned if the national media and a lot of guys haven't given you more fire this off-season.
That's right.
The, the, the respect, I feel, it didn't come.
No, you're right.
You know what I said to the staff the other day was- I go, "Guys, this, this is the best part of coaching the Jacksonville Jaguars.
You don't have to make up- Yeah telling your players stuff."
Right.
You don't have to make up the fire.
You don't have to make it up.
It's given to us every day.
Yeah.
And it's like a wel- it's a gift- from the heavens.
From the You know, you just scroll.
I just go, pull out my phone.
Look at the NFL Network website.
And just pop up here.
And, and I just- Any column curious if I see any photos or anything about the Jacksonville Jaguars.
I think I'll just scroll right on through.
You keep going, yeah.
I think I'll see 40 pictures of Caleb Williams.
And I won't see a single thing about any of our players on here.
And so it's beautiful.
Because it's like, yeah, guys, this is great.
Thanks.
The gift that keeps on giving.
I'm just gonna tell, I'm just gonna tell all these guys how much you all think they suck.
Yeah.
And we'll just keep going.
Look, he's making a point.
I And one of the reasons that they don't get more attention is because they lost at home to the Bills in the playoffs, in the wildcard round.
So it makes people say the season was a little bit fluky.
You know, y- y- y- Yeah, it doesn't help the schedule- Agreed there division, whatever.
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
You, you have a chance, you have a chance to get our attention when everyone's paying attention to your game.
You get a standalone window against Josh Allen and company, and you lose the game.
That's why people aren't talking more about the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Yeah.
They weren't a final four team.
They weren't a final eight team.
They failed to make it from the wildcard round to the divisional round.
That's it, period.
That's where it's coming from.
It's earned.
You think you've earned more discussion of your team.
You didn't earn it when you had the chance because the whole time they were winning those games, I'm thinking, "When's the, when's the, the, the roof gonna cave in on this?"
The whole Trevor Lawrence thing.
You, you We, we wait.
We wait.
It seems inevitable every game.
There's gonna be a moment.
And even though he acquitted himself well as the season unfolded, and he, he played maybe the best football we've seen since he came to the NFL in 2021, they, they had their chance to advance and they blew it, and that's why they're not being talked about.
So I get what Cohen's saying.
I really do think And I think part of it was he was being egged on by the guys on 1010XL and he was trying to be funny.
But I mean, come on, let's not put the stick too far up your butt on this.
The lack of discussion and focus on the Jaguars is earned.
Well, yeah.
It, it, it's earned to a degree.
It is that city.
I mean, if there's one place or one city in a, in, in our NFL where it can fall under the radar quicker than others, Jacksonville is one of those top three as far as that, not being in the national news.
It's a guy that we know, Liam Cohen, is chippy as hell.
He's got some feistiness about him.
So I do love that, whether, you know, it's, you know, telling Robert Saleh to keep your, my name out of your mouth and whatever.
Yeah, he's got a little bit of this fire in him, and that's why they were a tougher football team last year.
You're right, they blew the opportunity to kind of, like, be front and center on stage and be like, "Hey, we're here.
We're the Jacksonville Jaguars."
But at the same time, I will say what he's saying is I mean, it i- like you just said, it's a 13-win football team that kicked the crap out of most teams at the end of the regular season.
Went into Denver, who we'd all go, "Man, if their starting quarterback was healthy, I think he would've been in the Super Bowl."
They went into Denver late in the year and whooped the crap out of the Denver Broncos.
So within that, I will say, like, yeah, you said it, he, he's not wrong.
He's not wrong.
And even for Jacksonville, though, 13 wins, a quarterback that played MVP style type of football at the end of the year like you talked about.
They got some other young players.
They got a hot defensive coordinator.
I, I would say they're flying under the radar maybe more than they should.
I mean, we do, we talk about a lot of teams that won 11 games and 10 games and say, "Watch out for them this year," and watch that.
And there's Jacksonville with the third-best record in football last year, and we kind of just go, "Eh.
Oh yeah, that's right, Jacksonville."
And they got a roster that is talented enough to We know it's playoff caliber.
It's just about, wait, are they seasoned, mature enough?
Are they ready to be Super Bowl caliber?
And I think the talent on the roster's there.
I think it's more now just about going out, proving it, being mature, battle tested, all the things you kind of just talked about where they failed on the big stage last year, against Buffalo Leading 24-20- Yeah with four minutes left in the game.
And made so many mistakes.
Remember?
And the Bills drove down.
I mean, you had the- Yeah Trevor Lawrence tripped on his own feet at the two-yard line and he was gonna score a touchdown.
I mean, there was a lot of moments in that game, and especially early on where you went, "Ooh, Jacksonville's better.
They're, they're, they're the more talented team."
And Buffalo kind of just ha- hung in.
They, they, they kind of handled that momentum surge.
And then yeah, Jacksonville battled back and had a chance to win the football game, but we know that's, you know, a lot of people say that when they're up by four against Josh Allen, and that happens from time to time.
Well, that was the weight of the world game for the Bills.
It was.
You could feel it.
It was palpable that Josh Allen knew how much was riding on beating the Jaguars and advancing to the divisional round.
And we all thought this is the up or down game for Sean McDermott.
You're right.
Lose this game and he- Mm-hmm may be out, and then he won that game and he was still out the next week- which made that so shocking.
We thought he'd saved himself by coming from behind to beat the Jaguars, but no, they still had to go beat the Broncos to have kept Sean McDermott around.
So that's why we're not as juiced up about the Jaguars, because they didn't fulfill the potential that their regular season performance suggested.
And this year's gonna be weird because they're playing in a stadium that's being actively renovated that's only gonna hold about 45,000 people for the games in Jacksonville.
Next year they're gonna be displaced from Jacksonville.
They're entering a strange time in their existence as a franchise.
Limited crowds this year.
Orlando next year for their home games played in the US.
I think they'll end up playing a couple in London next year.
But it's just a weird time.
It's a lot to deal with.
Yeah.
And it's gonna require- Mm-hmm it's gonna require strong personality, force of nature, life force from Liam Cohen to keep them focused on the task at hand.
And you mentioned Robert Saleh.
Isn't it great that he's in Tennessee and they'll play each other twice.
And they play each other twice 14 days apart, November 15 and November 29.
That November 29 game to cap Thanksgiving week, man, that, that could be juicy.
Yeah, it definitely could.
That could be ugly.
Well, we got some Yeah.
Those two teams playing each other twice, those coaches dealing with each other twice 14 days apart.
And see, there, we're talking about the Jaguars in a good way.
We could get Liam Cohen and Robert Saleh round two and round three just 14 days apart in the month of November.
Well, I know.
Well, they, that- that's where I think I know I'm excited, right?
And, and you know how much I loved the Texans last year, but I also was sitting there going, "Man, the Jags, the Jags, the Jags.
Look at the Jags.
They're legit."
And I think the thing that we've seen is they showed some toughness and some physicality.
They showed that.
And they showed, and he showed that he's got a quarterback whisperer type of talent, and he got Trevor Lawrence playing the best football he's ever played at the end of the season.
So that's where, you know, people like me, I'm like, "Ooh, wow," you know?
"Hey, wow," I, I would say, okay, you know, some of the under the radar MVP candidates, yeah, Justin Herbert would be one, 'cause Mike McDaniel, Caleb Williams, year two, and Ben Johnson.
Trevor Lawrence could also be one of those guys, and that's what's crazy, too.
So he played at such a high level.
And, you know, that's where, as a football evaluator, I kind of get excited about Jacksonville.
And then, like you talk about it, you said it, I mean, it, it's, it's kind of become, one, it's, it's a talented division that we probably don't talk about as highly as we should at times.
It's got four really good coaches.
I mean, like really good.
X and O's, really good football coaches, not just like, "Oh, I manage the team."
These are guys that get their hands dirty in the game plan and do that.
And I mean, between Saleh, DeMeco Ryans, of course, Shane Steichen, and Liam Cohen, you got two defensive psychos in Ryans and Saleh, and two offensive psychos in, in Cohen and Steichen, and it's great that way.
Yeah, I'm reluctant to do this- Yeah but you do it all the time, and I think we just need to go ahead and deal with this on air.
Okay.
You know there's an S at the end of Ryans.
There is an S at the end of Ryans.
Oh, yeah.
It is DeMeco Ryans, Ryans.
Yeah, yeah.
I do.
I know.
Yeah.
You say Ryans all the time.
I know.
I don't know why it comes out that way.
I know.
I don't know what I do.
I, I, I, it's because I know it's DeMeco Ryans, but when I speak about it in like a quick way, I forget the S or I leave the S off.
So no disrespect to DeMeco Ryans there.
