Jacksonville Jaguars 26 - Carolina Panthers 10
Jacksonville Jaguars 26 - Carolina Panthers 10
Q. Liam you guys were really sharp coming out of the lightning delays. What did you talk about coming out of that hour?
LIAM COEN: I think the guys did a nice job of understanding where we live. We talked about this going into the game that this was a possibility. We talked about it this morning as a staff.
I thought they just did a nice job. We were doing some kind of not after-action reports after the half, but a little bit of what did they do. We kept them engaged. Also gave them a little bit of space to go and kind of stay loose and stretch out in here. They kept their focus.
Came out, got them loose, and I thought they came out with the right mindset and mentality for sure. It's a weird deal. First one in my career, but really proud of the way that they competed and closed the thing out.
Q. Liam, first game as Jaguars head coach. Just in terms of your emotions, in terms of the team's emotions, where are they right now?
LIAM COEN: Yeah, I mean, really cool to be standing up here obviously after a win, but I was just really proud to be their coach today with the way that they competed, the way we hit, the way we were more physical, all the things that we kind of wanted to preach about.
Now, is it perfect? Absolutely not. You're frustrated with some of the penalties that have continued to bite us in the butt that we did overcome at times, but that's not something we want to get used to doing by any means.
So when you play teams as we go throughout this thing, we cannot do those things and expect to win.
Q. Then you talked about all training camp and the offseason about how you're going to need to see the team in actual games to assess the run game. Just seeing the performance today, particularly Travis Etienne, what did you think?
LIAM COEN: Those guys up front I thought we played really well at times. The backed up run that he makes, Strange comes across, and there's a safety sitting in the hole that Travis just, you know, made a great move and broke loose.
You could feel him all day. You definitely felt him being a little bit -- having a little bit more burst maybe than other guys on the grass. He looked fresh. He looked fast. He took care of the football.
Proud of him. He did a great job, but the whole unit really all the way through the end of the game ran the ball effectively.
Q. First full game with Trevor. What did you make of the communication between the two of you, and also how did he play?
LIAM COEN: Yeah, I thought that -- especially early on throughout, I thought he had great communication. We were in and out of the huddle. Had the one delay, but that was really a communication fault of us as coaches.
I thought he handled things well. I thought he had not a great third quarter, to be honest. You know, we need to be more accurate and complete some of those balls when we have people open, but I thought overall for his first start in a new system, he handled it really well.
He got us in and out of plays. He had to can a lot of plays, and he did it effectively and efficiently. I was proud of his leadership.
Q. How encouraging were the two scrambles?
LIAM COEN: Oh, huge, huge. We talked about that on Friday was you don't get to see that in practice, right? I didn't get to see it last year with Baker either, because you are trying to be a quarterback and go through your progressions, go through your reads, play the position.
Man, he saw. He knew it right away. He came off the sideline. It was man coverage. The linebacker, who is the hole player, took BT, and he saw a huge lane. For him to be able to do that is huge. Those were two huge pick-ups for us.
I'm glad that he was able to get out there and play it that way.
Q. Liam, did you get the game ball?
LIAM COEN: I got one of them. We'll give out more on Monday, yeah.
Q. Was it a reluctant acceptance?
LIAM COEN: Yeah, a little bit. My boss gave it to me, so I had to accept. You know, it's a cool moment for me personally and all that, but really it's about those guys.
I mean, these guys played their tail off. I thought the defensive staff specifically did a great job. Not to single them out better than the offensive staff. They all did a great job, but I thought Campy had some very timely pressure calls in both the run and the pass to really get three turnovers. Should have been a fourth and two turnovers on downs. I mean, that's damn good defense.
Q. I was going to follow up with that on the defense. Murray, Louis, and Foye, the heart of the defense, those guys had huge plays after huge plays. How encouraging was that to see for a defense that did not turn the ball over very much last year?
LIAM COEN: Huge. What did they have eight last year? So to get three in one game -- nine, eight on defense, nine total. So to get three in one game is probably a good start.
Q. Defense and some of the fourth down high-leverage situations, what does that say to you to see them come out on top the way they did?
LIAM COEN: Just that the competition, the mamba periods that we've been able to kind of replicate in practice, the high-level situational football was able to show up. The fourth down, got-to-have-its, and really the end-of-half execution. By the offense on the flip side where Trevor -- we picked up and overload pressure. LeQuint Allen has a great pick-up. Trevor stands firm, throws the dagger to Dyami. We get the time-out, kick the field goal. That's well-executed situational football.
But the defense stepping up the way they did. I mean, the rush was getting home. We let them out a couple of times too much for my liking, but we were affecting the quarterback. Then I think from the back end those guys did a great job as well.
Q. What kind of impression did you get from the offensive line and pass rush? It seemed like Trevor wasn't affected much.
LIAM COEN: Yeah, I really did feel like they were protecting their tails off. I didn't feel like he was under a ton of duress. It's not really Carolina's nature in terms of bringing much pressure, but I thought those guys did a nice job in protection.
I didn't really chip much at all on either of those two tackles, so that was encouraging for sure.
Q. As you've been adjusting to the role of head coach and how you have completed your first game, what aspects of the job have you found to be most surprising or most unexpected?
LIAM COEN: Good one. Probably just the amount of scheduling that goes into it, right? I mean, that's why I have Jay Kaiser is a great help of mine and Shane Waldron, Elizabeth Harrison, just giving help with the scheduling and trying to take some of that stuff off my plate, because ultimately, why Shahid went this right is to keep the main thing the main thing.
I am a football coach, but that's part of the job. A lot of the organization of it, I've got a great support staff helping me out. That's been probably the biggest challenge.
Q. Fourth and one you bring in Edoga. How rewarding was that for you and the staff when you look back to last year and the last several years around here. Third and one, third and two, fourth and one, this team couldn't pick it up. You played man football and got a first down. What was that like?
LIAM COEN: That was huge. We definitely had a little bit of a conversation about that one kind of leading into the play. Like, just a few plays prior just what our thought process was and we did want to be aggressive in that moment and keep the offense on the field and kind of challenge our team, challenge these guys. They rose. You know, they rose up to the challenge.
We got the first. Keeps the offense on the grass, keep the ball moving, keeps the clock moving. That's momentum, and we know in this game so much momentum, man, the swings and how do you handle them and manage them. I thought those guys kept their cool and really handled those situational football really well in terms of getting those fourth downs.
What did we have two fourth downs that we went for and got? You know, we would like to be aggressive. That's kind of the mentality we would like to have, but without being reckless, and I thought those guys handled it well.
Q. Your confidence putting a seventh-rounder in, Allen Jr., immediately on third down and what he was able to do.
LIAM COEN: Like I said, the pick-up in the two-minute drill was huge. He had Jaycee Horn blitzing on a corner blitz, and that's a big dude coming and a good player. He stoned it, and he stoned it, allowed Trevor to step up in the pockets, make a great throw.
He had a good third down run as well on. I think it was third and fourth, third and three, where he had a nice run. Scored it in there for a first down. To have all four of those backs contribute today. Whether it shows up in the stat sheet as having all these yards, and obviously Etienne will get a lot of that praise, deservingly so, but I think that room in general with Chad Morton as their coach have done a phenomenal job getting good and improving since the entire time we've been here really.
Q. What did you think of Travis Hunter's performance today, and is that kind of the way you guys want to use him going forward, mostly offense?
LIAM COEN: I think that was game one. I think that was week one where you miss ten days or so, and there was a lot of different kind of coverage changes in the back end for us with some of their formations, adjustments. It was a lot that those guys had to handle defensively.
So it was maybe a little bit less for him this game. I think it will only continue to evolve and go more. I thought he played hard on offense. I thought he played fast. He had some good catches, ran the right route. I can only see it going and expanding from here.
Q. Liam you guys were really sharp coming out of the lightning delays. What did you talk about coming out of that hour?
LIAM COEN: I think the guys did a nice job of understanding where we live. We talked about this going into the game that this was a possibility. We talked about it this morning as a staff.
I thought they just did a nice job. We were doing some kind of not after-action reports after the half, but a little bit of what did they do. We kept them engaged. Also gave them a little bit of space to go and kind of stay loose and stretch out in here. They kept their focus.
Came out, got them loose, and I thought they came out with the right mindset and mentality for sure. It's a weird deal. First one in my career, but really proud of the way that they competed and closed the thing out.
Q. Liam, first game as Jaguars head coach. Just in terms of your emotions, in terms of the team's emotions, where are they right now?
LIAM COEN: Yeah, I mean, really cool to be standing up here obviously after a win, but I was just really proud to be their coach today with the way that they competed, the way we hit, the way we were more physical, all the things that we kind of wanted to preach about.
Now, is it perfect? Absolutely not. You're frustrated with some of the penalties that have continued to bite us in the butt that we did overcome at times, but that's not something we want to get used to doing by any means.
So when you play teams as we go throughout this thing, we cannot do those things and expect to win.
Q. Then you talked about all training camp and the offseason about how you're going to need to see the team in actual games to assess the run game. Just seeing the performance today, particularly Travis Etienne, what did you think?
LIAM COEN: Those guys up front I thought we played really well at times. The backed up run that he makes, Strange comes across, and there's a safety sitting in the hole that Travis just, you know, made a great move and broke loose.
You could feel him all day. You definitely felt him being a little bit -- having a little bit more burst maybe than other guys on the grass. He looked fresh. He looked fast. He took care of the football.
Proud of him. He did a great job, but the whole unit really all the way through the end of the game ran the ball effectively.
Q. First full game with Trevor. What did you make of the communication between the two of you, and also how did he play?
LIAM COEN: Yeah, I thought that -- especially early on throughout, I thought he had great communication. We were in and out of the huddle. Had the one delay, but that was really a communication fault of us as coaches.
I thought he handled things well. I thought he had not a great third quarter, to be honest. You know, we need to be more accurate and complete some of those balls when we have people open, but I thought overall for his first start in a new system, he handled it really well.
He got us in and out of plays. He had to can a lot of plays, and he did it effectively and efficiently. I was proud of his leadership.
Q. How encouraging were the two scrambles?
LIAM COEN: Oh, huge, huge. We talked about that on Friday was you don't get to see that in practice, right? I didn't get to see it last year with Baker either, because you are trying to be a quarterback and go through your progressions, go through your reads, play the position.
Man, he saw. He knew it right away. He came off the sideline. It was man coverage. The linebacker, who is the hole player, took BT, and he saw a huge lane. For him to be able to do that is huge. Those were two huge pick-ups for us.
I'm glad that he was able to get out there and play it that way.
Q. Liam, did you get the game ball?
LIAM COEN: I got one of them. We'll give out more on Monday, yeah.
Q. Was it a reluctant acceptance?
LIAM COEN: Yeah, a little bit. My boss gave it to me, so I had to accept. You know, it's a cool moment for me personally and all that, but really it's about those guys.
I mean, these guys played their tail off. I thought the defensive staff specifically did a great job. Not to single them out better than the offensive staff. They all did a great job, but I thought Campy had some very timely pressure calls in both the run and the pass to really get three turnovers. Should have been a fourth and two turnovers on downs. I mean, that's damn good defense.
Q. I was going to follow up with that on the defense. Murray, Louis, and Foye, the heart of the defense, those guys had huge plays after huge plays. How encouraging was that to see for a defense that did not turn the ball over very much last year?
LIAM COEN: Huge. What did they have eight last year? So to get three in one game -- nine, eight on defense, nine total. So to get three in one game is probably a good start.
Q. Defense and some of the fourth down high-leverage situations, what does that say to you to see them come out on top the way they did?
LIAM COEN: Just that the competition, the mamba periods that we've been able to kind of replicate in practice, the high-level situational football was able to show up. The fourth down, got-to-have-its, and really the end-of-half execution. By the offense on the flip side where Trevor -- we picked up and overload pressure. LeQuint Allen has a great pick-up. Trevor stands firm, throws the dagger to Dyami. We get the time-out, kick the field goal. That's well-executed situational football.
But the defense stepping up the way they did. I mean, the rush was getting home. We let them out a couple of times too much for my liking, but we were affecting the quarterback. Then I think from the back end those guys did a great job as well.
Q. What kind of impression did you get from the offensive line and pass rush? It seemed like Trevor wasn't affected much.
LIAM COEN: Yeah, I really did feel like they were protecting their tails off. I didn't feel like he was under a ton of duress. It's not really Carolina's nature in terms of bringing much pressure, but I thought those guys did a nice job in protection.
I didn't really chip much at all on either of those two tackles, so that was encouraging for sure.
Q. As you've been adjusting to the role of head coach and how you have completed your first game, what aspects of the job have you found to be most surprising or most unexpected?
LIAM COEN: Good one. Probably just the amount of scheduling that goes into it, right? I mean, that's why I have Jay Kaiser is a great help of mine and Shane Waldron, Elizabeth Harrison, just giving help with the scheduling and trying to take some of that stuff off my plate, because ultimately, why Shahid went this right is to keep the main thing the main thing.
I am a football coach, but that's part of the job. A lot of the organization of it, I've got a great support staff helping me out. That's been probably the biggest challenge.
Q. Fourth and one you bring in Edoga. How rewarding was that for you and the staff when you look back to last year and the last several years around here. Third and one, third and two, fourth and one, this team couldn't pick it up. You played man football and got a first down. What was that like?
LIAM COEN: That was huge. We definitely had a little bit of a conversation about that one kind of leading into the play. Like, just a few plays prior just what our thought process was and we did want to be aggressive in that moment and keep the offense on the field and kind of challenge our team, challenge these guys. They rose. You know, they rose up to the challenge.
We got the first. Keeps the offense on the grass, keep the ball moving, keeps the clock moving. That's momentum, and we know in this game so much momentum, man, the swings and how do you handle them and manage them. I thought those guys kept their cool and really handled those situational football really well in terms of getting those fourth downs.
What did we have two fourth downs that we went for and got? You know, we would like to be aggressive. That's kind of the mentality we would like to have, but without being reckless, and I thought those guys handled it well.
Q. Your confidence putting a seventh-rounder in, Allen Jr., immediately on third down and what he was able to do.
LIAM COEN: Like I said, the pick-up in the two-minute drill was huge. He had Jaycee Horn blitzing on a corner blitz, and that's a big dude coming and a good player. He stoned it, and he stoned it, allowed Trevor to step up in the pockets, make a great throw.
He had a good third down run as well on. I think it was third and fourth, third and three, where he had a nice run. Scored it in there for a first down. To have all four of those backs contribute today. Whether it shows up in the stat sheet as having all these yards, and obviously Etienne will get a lot of that praise, deservingly so, but I think that room in general with Chad Morton as their coach have done a phenomenal job getting good and improving since the entire time we've been here really.
Q. What did you think of Travis Hunter's performance today, and is that kind of the way you guys want to use him going forward, mostly offense?
LIAM COEN: I think that was game one. I think that was week one where you miss ten days or so, and there was a lot of different kind of coverage changes in the back end for us with some of their formations, adjustments. It was a lot that those guys had to handle defensively.
So it was maybe a little bit less for him this game. I think it will only continue to evolve and go more. I thought he played hard on offense. I thought he played fast. He had some good catches, ran the right route. I can only see it going and expanding from here.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports