When the Jacksonville Jaguars hired Doug Pederson in 2022, it looked like they had found the head coach that would get the most out of Trevor Lawrence and take them to the promised land. For a brief moment, he appeared to be that guy.
In his first season at the helm, Pederson took the Jags to the playoffs and won the AFC South. This wasn't a small feat when you take into account that they were coming off the brief (but chaotic) Urban Meyer era.
Expected to take the next step in Pederson's second season as the head coach, Jacksonville instead collapsed and failed to make the playoffs after starting 8-3 in 2023. Things didn't get better last year. In fact, they got worse. The team appeared to go through the motions and finished 4-13.
Given that the buck stopped with "Doug P", he was let go after the 2024 campaign. Since his firing, the Jaguars brass has made several significant changes. The most notable one was probably bringing in Liam Coen as his replacement.
With Coen leading the way, the Jaguars expect to enjoy sustained success, something they didn't have with Pederson. But just how truly different is the 2025 team from its last year counterpart? With that in mind, here are three things that have changed.
The Jaguars aren't in "win-now" mode
One of the biggest mistakes Jaguars owner Shad Khan could've made last year was proclaiming that the 2024 team was the best in team history. That raised expectations to an absurd level. To nobody's surprise, the Jags came crashing down. In the end, it might've been for the best.
The Doug Pederson team proved that it wasn't built to navigate through adversity, so the organization decided to tear it down and start from scratch. Of course, it's never pleasant to see coaches or players lose their jobs, but that's the nature of the business: If you don't win enough, you'll be shown the door.
At some point in the future, Coen might also be under pressure to deliver. But for the time being, he inherited a team that's failed to make the playoffs two straight years and has lots of roster holes. This is to say that expectations will be tempered the first or two years of his stint in Jacksonville.
The new Jaguars regime is operating with a sense of urgency
Doug Pederson was under pressure to win in 2024, but you wouldn't know it based on his decisions on and off the field. Right-hand man Press Taylor was in charge of the offense and playcalling, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing if he were any good at it, but he wasn't. The offense grew stale and became an echo chamber between the two.
Instead of taking over playcalling duty, Pederson didn't make any changes and went out of his way to defend him. He routinely blamed players for the team's inability to win games and appeared to have tuned out midway through the 2024 season.
Granted, maybe Pederson knew that the end was near, but instead of doing his best to right the ship, he accepted his fate without resisting. Meanwhile, Liam Coen has quickly gotten to work and is making as many changes as necessary instead of enjoying the honeymoon period new head coaches are awarded.
Coen has been busy identifying all the issues that surrounded last year. And along with general manager James Gladstone, he's doing anything he can to improve as quickly as necessary. Perhaps if Pederson had shown that sense of urgency, he might still be around.
Trevor Lawrence is spearheading a youth movement with the Jaguars
Aside from linebacker Foyesade Oluokun, you'll be hard-pressed to find a player on the Jaguars roster who was drafted before 2019. Heck, Oluokun, along with Josh Hines-Allen and Trevor Lawrence, are now the elders in the room.
Gone are Mitch Morse, Brandon Scherff, Christian Kirk, and Evan Engram. Nobody will underestimate the impact they had during their respective tenure with the Jags, but all of them had to go to free up cap space and address the larger scale roster.
Now, some of the more notable players on the Jaguars roster are Parker Washington, Brian Thomas Jr., Brenton Strange, and Anton Harrison. None of these players had been in the league for more than two years.
Armed with 10 picks in the 2025 draft, the Jaguars will keep adding youth (and talent) to the roster.