The Jacksonville Jaguars are hoping that the 2025 season, Liam Coen's first as the head coach of the team, wasn't a fluke. They'll start their quest to prove that it wasn't against the Cleveland Browns, as the NFL regular season is officially underway.
Adding fuel to the Jags' hype train is NFL insider Jason La Canfora, who recently unveiled some bold predictions for the 2026 season. In those predictions, La Canfora said that he thinks Coen will be crowned the Coach of the Year.
"I think the AFC South could be pretty formidable. I also am buying the Jaguars picking up where they left off last season and having a very successful regular season. Could they be the top seed in the AFC? I wouldn’t be shocked.
"Could he get Trevor Lawrence playing at a fringy-MVP level? This coaching staff has some secret sauce, people around the league believe, and there is a lot of belief after how well Coen’s rookie campaign went. Mike Macdonald won the Super Bowl in year two. I’m just sayin'."
Liam Coen has the deck stacked against him for winning Coach of the Year this season
All solid points! The AFC South doesn't appear to be the joke it once was, with the Jags and Texans trading blows last year and the Colts looking competitive in the first half of the season. The Titans are still the Titans, but hey, they have Robert Saleh now and could very well improve with him leading the charge. If Coen can lead the Jaguars to another division title, that'd make him 2-for-2 and not in the weak AFC South that this division was for so long.
The problem here is that the Coach of the Year award usually goes to a coach who takes a bad team and makes them more formidable. That's not the situation that Coen and the Jaguars are in. They were a great team last year and are hoping to keep the momentum going.
Perhaps if Jacksonville ends up as the No. 1 overall seed in the AFC playoffs, then Coen would get his flowers but this would be a difficult prediction to come true. That's why it's a bold prediction, though.
If Trevor Lawrence wins MVP and the Jaguars own the best record in the AFC, would that be enough to change the narrative surrounding the award? Would Coen be a lock to take it home? It'd honestly probably just depend on what the other teams did and if some of the first-year coaches could turn things around with their respective teams.
It won't be an easy task for Coen but if he could check this award off his bucket list, the 2026 season would be quite the magical ride for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
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