The Jacksonville Jaguars have been hard at work to reshape their entire identity this offseason. After back-to-back years of failure with Trevor Lawrence at the helm, the franchise was ready to switch gears in more ways than one. As a result, they replaced Doug Pederson with Liam Coen as the new head coach while also bringing on James Gladstone as the new general manager.
Together, they orchestrated a blockbuster trade to land Travis Hunter on the roster. However, beyond flashy moves, the Jaguars are anticipating the Coen hire to pay dividends in the long run, after he did an excellent job with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as their offensive coordinator. However, not everyone from Tampa Bay, most notably quarterback Baker Mayfield, is a fan of the attitude adjustment Coen has gone through since arriving in Jacksonville.
Baker Mayfield Isn’t Buying the Liam Coen Hype for the Jaguars
After his career at Alabama, Coen quickly entered the coaching ranks, specializing in the offensive side of football. He honed his craft with some geniuses and even spent a year under Sean McVay with the Los Angeles Rams, where Mayfield served as a backup.
Eventually, he won the offensive coordinator job for the Buccaneers and led them to one of their best offensive outputs in recent franchise history while reuniting with Mayfield and giving him some of the best numbers of his career. The offense as a whole finished third on PFSN’s Offense+ metric.
Individually, Mayfield threw for a career-high of 4,500 yards and 41 touchdowns, despite key receivers like Mike Evans and Chris Godwin missing parts of the season. Now, Coen is taking over as the head coach of the Jaguars, but his former quarterback isn’t a fan of some of his antics.
During an appearance on the Pardon My Take podcast, Mayfield made his stance clear: “Stop trying to be the cool guy. Just do your job. Be a head coach.” When his co-guest, Alex Caruso, tried to frame it as part of the “culture,” the two-time Pro Bowler immediately fired back, “I don’t know if they want that culture.”
However, it wasn’t just a dragging party against his former coach on the podcast. He did give Coen his due. “He’s a great coordinator. So we’ll see how it goes. We talk all the time, and he’s a great coach, so we’ll see how it goes.”
For a team that added the reigning Heisman Trophy winner in the offseason, the expectations are sky-high in Jacksonville. So far in his career, Coen has shown himself to be more than capable of handling the offensive side of the football. Now it will be interesting to see how he does in the head coaching capacity for the first time in his career.