There are several reasons the Jacksonville Jaguars lost to the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 2. The phantom pass interference call on Travis Hunter in the fourth quarter was one of them. Wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr.'s evident lack of effort also comes to mind.
Ultimately, though, football is a team effort, and it wasn't just one thing or another but rather a series of them that prevented the Jags from sealing the deal. Liam Coen made it clear in his postgame speech.
Liam Coen urges Jaguars players to fix mistakes and focus on the nexxt game
It's rare for teams to post footage of a locker room talk after a loss, but the Jaguars did it after falling to Cincy. You can hear Liam Coen tell the team that everyone must think about the things they can do better to help the team win, pointing out that no play decided the outcome of the game.
"At the end of the day, guys, we didn't do enough. That's just reality as a whole, as a team. We talked about this last night, as a team, we win, we lose, we compete as a team, and so at the end of the day, we didn't do enough to get it done," Coen told players. "We gotta watch the tape to really see what it was, what it came down to. It's never going to be just one play, right? We all know that."
Coen continued, "We all know that it's never going to be one play. So all of us got to go look at it. We got to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, What can I do to help get us over the hump in these moments? I appreciate that. We appreciate that, as coaches. It doesn't make you feel any better. I understand, but all I know is I'll go fight with you guys. I'll go compete with you guys every single day, so I appreciate you."
To end the speech, Coen urges players to correct the stuff that's been holding the team back.
"It's gonna sting. It's gonna hurt, but we gotta move on. You guys with me on that? Understand that, guys? We gotta move [expletive] on... together. — Anthony Campanlie intercedes: "It's the only way forward together." — That's it, and everybody had a part. There was so much good on the field today, so much good. We gotta lean into that. Correct the [expletive] that has continued to bite us in the butt after two games at times. We gotta correct it. We gotta correct it and move the [expletive] up and go get ready to win the next game," Coen said.
All things considered, that's what you want to hear from your head coach. Below is the whole thing if you want to give it a listen.
Liam Coen has the Jaguars trending in the right direction
Liam Coen will run into several speed bumps early in his stint as the head coach. The loss against the Cincinnati Bengals was most definitely one, and you can make the case that he navigated it nicely.
Maybe you'll be turned off by his testy attitude during his press conference, but he wasn't rude. Heck, that's what you want to see in a coach that doesn't like losing. The same is true about his sideline interaction with Trevor Lawrence. In the midst of the game, tempers will flare, so you can't fault him for trying to get his point across.
The bottom line is that Coen is unfazed by the loss to the Bengals. Sure, a win would have been great, but he's aware that the Jaguars must move on if and fix stuff if they want to beat the Houston Texans in Week 3.