Liam Coen Addresses What Jaguars Defense Has to Clean Up

The Jacksonville Jaguars hired Liam Coen primarily to rejuvenate an offense that took several steps backward in the 2024 NFL season. Their new head coach did wonders for Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ attack as their offensive coordinator last season. Now, he’ll be hoping to coax out a career year from Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence.

However, Jacksonville had plenty of trouble on the other side of the ball in 2024, too.

Their defense gave up the second-most yards in the NFL last season and allowed the sixth-most points. Offense may be Coen’s specialty, but the Jaguars invested heavily in their defense this past offseason as well.

They spent five of their nine 2025 draft picks on D: Navy safety Rayuan Lane III, Auburn linebacker Jalen McLeod, Notre Dame linebacker Jack Kiser, Tulane cornerback Caleb Ransaw, and, of course, Colorado cornerback Travis Hunter Jr. They also added former Dallas Cowboys cornerback Jourdan Lewis and former Houston Texans safety Eric Murray in free agency.

With those additions and new defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile on board, Jacksonville will be looking to improve significantly on D in 2025. However, they got off to a middling start in their first preseason game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Aug 9, 2025; Jacksonville, Florida, USA; Jacksonville Jaguars defensive back De’Antre Prince (24) makes a tackle against the Pittsburgh Steelers during a preseason game at EverBank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Travis Register-Imagn Images / Travis Register-Imagn Images

In preseason Week 1, the Jacksonville Jaguars allowed 31 points and 367 total yards. They only forced the Pittsburgh Steelers to punt three times and allowed four touchdowns and a field goal. However, they did get a fourth-down stop to start the second half.

Head Coach Liam Coen wasn’t too pleased with his team’s defensive performance, especially in terms of their chemistry:

“It was disappointing to see some of the communication errors that we did have, but also just alignment-assignment issues. We have new systems on both sides of the ball. It’s going to probably take a little bit more than a preseason game to maybe correct some of the things that we wanted to get corrected and play as sound as we would like to play.”

It wasn’t all bad from the Jaguars, though. Coen also acknowledged some of the encouraging signs he saw from Jacksonville’s D:

“I was proud of a couple of moments, specifically the fourth-down stop when we scored a couple of plays later on, which was a huge play in the game. Then at the end of the game when you needed to get a stop in four minutes, they stopped the run three times in a row, forced a punt, and gave us a chance to go win the game. So, when it mattered, there were some nice plays, some good effort all around, but we need to get some of that stuff fixed.”

Hopefully, the Jaguars can continue to get stops when it matters the most once the regular season comes around. For now, it seems like they have plenty to work on throughout the remainder of the preseason, especially with their comfort level in Defensive Coordinator Anthony Campanile’s new system and communicating with one another.

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