Press Pass | Liam Coen Recaps Preseason Opener vs. Steelers

Jacksonville Jaguars HC Liam Coen speaks to the media following loss to the Steelers in Week 1 of the preseason.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, Liam, I would imagine that one of the first
things you looked at on film from last year is
how the team really struggled in their first possession coming out.
It was a lot of three and outs and just
not good. Twelve plays forty four yards, you take seven
minutes and nineteen seconds off the clock, but it's marred
by a couple of penalties. What were your thoughts on
that drive.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, we wanted to take the ball and you know,
get the one.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Oh, and we weren't going to keep them in very
long anyway, and we just wanted to get those guys
those reps. And I thought it was obviously, you know,
well executed in terms of the majority of it. And
then the theme of the day showed up for us
on that one drive, which was self inflicted wounds.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
So you get the.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
First play of the game, you get a false start,
go backwards, overcome, move it forward, get a good screen.
The ATM makes people miss, and then you know, we
throw the screen.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
The Travis BT's got a pressed up corner.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
The guy you know, the Nickelie blocks and they call
OPI I didn't see the block in the back on
Ezra there, So that puts in us in third and twelve,
and the thought was, hey, let's do a control pass here,
try to maybe get it to if we could have
got it to third and four, so we probably would
have gone for our fourth and four.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Excuse me, So one of the skill players got a touch.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
I was pleased with, you know, wanted to get everybody
kind of a touch, and involved was pleased with the
fourth down conversion, you know for those guys.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
So that was good. It was some good stuff. But yeah,
we want to finish with a touchdown.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
William, you kind of hinted at it, but just in
terms of the penalties tonight, how do you address that
with the team? I know you talked about it beforehand,
you wanted to see more disciplines. How do you sort
of get to that?

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, I mean I did just address it.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
I think that ultimately, it's it's something that takes no
talent to do. And you know, we can't beat anybody.
This is something we've been preaching for a long time
since we arrived, was we cannot start to beat people
until we stopped beating ourselves, and that has remained pretty
consistent since February wherever it's been.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
So, yeah, frustrating for sure.

Speaker 4 (02:03):
And then I guess just just last for me came
little seventy yard field goal. What was your immediate reaction,
what were the what was the thought process sending them
back out?

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, so it was I forget what the time, you know,
when it was five seconds.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
We tried to run all slants.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
To get a down down time, ouse situation, to try
to get it past the fifty if you could. Uh,
they played three deep soft zone. There wasn't an easy
completion right now. So we checked it down and just
banged it, you know, and just Cam looked at me
and was like, yeah, let's I want it, and so
gave it a go and.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Uh, yeah, that was pretty cool to see.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
On Yeah, Liam Hunter's performance tonight, how would you rate that?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I guess eighteen snaps.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, I mean I think he you know, made a
couple of good catches on some option routes and you know,
missed the one tackle defensively that I noticed, Like that
was the only things that I, you know, kind of
noticed about is overall play in terms of that, I'll
have to watch the tape on how he operated defensively
a little bit more. But I thought offensively, he made
the right decisions on those option routes, made a good catch,

(03:10):
almost broke out of that one where kind of Trevor
put it behind him on that third down we talked
about but you know, I'll have to go watch the
tape a little bit more to know more mechanically though,
Oh good, yeah, no, no, yeah, he wanted to keep
playing offense after the first Raby came up to me,
It's like, can I go back in on? Oh no, no,
no time to go on d So that was no

(03:32):
problem from a communications standpoint. It was just more we
got to go see the film for the actual how
he executed.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
Liam, You've talked a lot about Trevor and just running operation.
How'd you feel like he did it tonight?

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, I think aside from the first play in terms
of I think he just was at the line with
a can and kind of just took a little long
and it got us a little jumpy. But I thought
aside from that, well, you look at getting through some progressions,
got back to strange on a progression for a first
down that was really nice to see. I thought we

(04:05):
protected Trevor pretty well. You know, I thought he was
accurate with the ball, you know, safety made a good
drive on on BT on that one inbreaker, but the
ball was kind of where it needed to be, maybe
a little bit more firm for him, but I thought
he operated a good click.

Speaker 5 (04:21):
And then you know, obviously guys are going to celebrate.
It was a big play. But seeing you know, Travis,
Josh anz Allen, everybody get excited for camps, I'm kind
of shure the culture you want to both build it is.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
You know, I think overall you felt a good sideline
vibe down there in terms of there was good energy.
You know, we had Wyatt mile M take a dude
to the sidelines on a screen that drove him all
the way to the stands. You know, we we shoved
you know, got the run in from the whatever yard
line where nine guys or whatever pushing the pile. So

(04:51):
you know, you definitely felt maybe a little bit of
a physical difference between the two teams in some ways
up front. You know, on both sides in terms of sides,
they're big, man, that's a it's a big team. But
I was proud of the way that the guys played physically.
They've played hard, they played tough. We just didn't play
smart enough.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Any concern about the ease with which the Steelers went
down against the first team defense.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah, I think there's a little concern with you know,
I think we were playing a little.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Loose on some of our coverage system.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
You know, I was a little disappointed with the early
third and two. I think it was where we're playing
a tight three deep in that situation and we got
off coverage to give an easy Omaha away. That was
a little frustrating to see. So, you know, those are
some things when you're playing a new system. Right, They've
been playing a lot of man coverage over the last
year here and playing a lot more zone coverage, so

(05:44):
oftentimes you almost start to do too much the other
way where we're giving up a lot of grass and
a little bit of room. So I imagine we're going
to want to ask these guys to get a little
stickier overall, you a little, but offensive line played one
of the biggest changes over all this team this offseason.

Speaker 5 (06:03):
What's your general thoughts on them and how they executed it?

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Second third team?

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, I thought zero sacks is always nice to have.
I didn't feel like the quarterbacks were under duress all
that much until kind of the end there where you
felt it, you know. I didn't think we got great
movement in the run game, but I thought that we,
you know, we tried to lean on him a little
bit and had some good runs. I'd like to be
able to see us, you know, running better than we did.

(06:30):
But I was pleased with their overall effort. You know,
I thought Sean had great communication with those guys and
they they did their best. But we can definitely be
better there.