Liam Coen isn’t pretending the Jaguars’ Week 2 loss was anything other than a team failure.
After Jacksonville let a 13-3 third-quarter lead slip away in Denver and absorbed 17 unanswered points from the Broncos, the Jaguars head coach said Friday that the disappointment starts with him. The Broncos were supposed to be a tough out, but the Jaguars had control of the game in the first half before the whole thing unraveled.
“I think I walked off the grass a little bit disappointed in myself, disappointed with a couple of things that I felt like as coaches, we could have helped them with,” he began. “I don't ever question the way that our guys are going to come out and play on Sundays in terms of the effort that they provide.
We get what we emphasize. And I didn't feel like I was at my best personally in times of need.
And it's all of us, it really is. And so when you don't get the result you want, especially when you don't play to your standard and you don't execute to your standard, a lot of that falls on me and us as coaches as well.”
That tone matters because the Jaguars are trying to reset quickly, and the schedule is not giving them any breathing room. New England is next, and the Patriots arrive with a reputation under Mike Vrabel for playing physical, disciplined football and grinding out tight games. Jacksonville, meanwhile, is still trying to show that it can handle that kind of test while staying in the playoff conversation.
The Broncos game brought plenty of criticism, including questions about how the Jaguars are using Travis Hunter, who has been severely underutilized so far. The offensive line also struggled badly against Denver, leaving Coen with a simple message: Jacksonville has to play to its level, not the opponent’s.
That was part of his point when he described the environment in Denver and how the Jaguars let the game slip.
“We walked into a hostile environment with every possible reason for them to kind of whoop our butts in ways,” Coen said. “And we kind of tricked it off.”
He was even more direct when he talked about the loss itself. In his view, the Broncos didn’t just survive Jacksonville’s mistakes - they took advantage of them, and the Jaguars handed over the result.
“In terms of our execution, they beat us without question,” he said. “But we also had some moments where we did not execute to the best of our ability, where you walk off the grass saying like, man, we did everything we could and we just got beat. And so they beat us, we earned the L, absolutely.”
Still, Coen is not framing the loss as a reason to panic. If anything, he said, it reinforces the idea that the problem was internal and therefore fixable. That’s why Sunday’s home matchup with New England feels so important: it’s a chance to answer the Broncos game with a sharper, cleaner performance.
“If anything, I'm encouraged, because I know we didn't execute to our standard,” he said. “And Denver was a reason for that, absolutely. But when I mean it's truly about us, it is, and we're all in it together.”
Against a Patriots team that will make Jacksonville earn every inch, the Jaguars’ response will say plenty about where they really are.
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