![Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen watches practice during an NFL training camp second session at the Miller Electric Center, Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Jacksonville, Fla. [Doug Engle/Florida Times-Union]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_227,w_4078,h_2293/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/55/01k110z56pmdth12tcjm.jpg "Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen watches practice during an NFL training camp second session at the Miller Electric Center, Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Jacksonville, Fla. [Doug Engle/Florida Times-Union]")
The Jacksonville Jaguars had their work cut out in the offseason, as they had to address several issues across the roster. One of their biggest one was their underwhelming play on the offensive line. Last year, the Jags routinely got pushed around at the line, so they struggled to protect Trevor Lawrence and open lanes on the running game. To fix the issue, the team's brass made several moves in the offseason.
Aside from hiring Shaun Sarrett as the offensive line coach, Jacksonville signed Robert Hansey and Patrick Mekari in free agency to start at center and right guard, respectively. The front office also locked up Chuma Edoga and Fred Johnson to provide depth, and later drafted Wyatt Milum and Jonah Monheim.
All things considered, the offensive trenches are in much better shape than they were at the 2024 offseason. However, personnel won't be the only change the unit will undergo. Head coach Liam Coen has also tweaked the approach and put an emphasis on one area that's not discussed nearly enough.
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The Jaguars are putting an emphasis on O-Line communication
Head coach Liam Coen met with the local media after Day 3 of training camp and said that communication has become a point of emphasis up front. Below is the skinny.
"So much is about communication. We really want to make sure is we break in the huddle the right way, which we started to see a lapse as the practice went on," Coen responded when asked what he's looking for from the offensive line (11:15 mark). "Are we attacking the line of scrimmage the right way? Are we getting up there and communicating all five and more to the tight ends, quarterback, all those things at a high level?"
Coen continued, "Making sure that we're targeting the run game properly, which I thought we did a better job of today in general, just not having an unblocked player because of a mised targeting issue. I thought we targeted our runs better today, and also they're responsible for the protections in a lot of ways with Trevor, so just the communication playing as a group, because you can't ultimately see the full physicality scale right now."
Precisely because the Jaguars haven't had the pads on yet, they must focus on the communication and technique aspects. You could make the case that this is obvious, but the truth is that the Jaguars didn't appear to be on the same wavelength last year, and the coaching staff's dearth of attention on fundamentals and technique was noticeable. Thus, it's not particularly surprising to see Coen making an effort to optimize the communication across the trenches.
As noted before, the Jaguars made several upgrades in the trenches the past few months that should lead to better play, but the communication aspect shouldn't be overlooked. All things in conjunction should lead to improved play in the trenches.