It's safe to say that hiring Liam Coen was a good choice for the Jacksonville Jaguars, even if it caused some measure of controversy at the time. He was wanted so badly by Shad Khan that it ended up being the push needed to finally ditch the disastrous Trent Baalke.
There have been bumps along the way, particularly at the beginning of the season when Coen and quarterback Trevor Lawrence were still figuring things out. Yet after the BYE, things finally started to gel, and the Jaguars have been red-hot ever since.
Under Coen, the Jags have become a tough, gritty team that revels in the league's disrespect and uses it as fuel. He's transformed Jacksonville into a completely different team and made them not only a playoff contender, but also potentially Super Bowl-bound. It's no wonder there is already talk of Coen being given a major award.
Liam Coen’s first year with the Jaguars is starting to look award-worthy
Liam Coen has only been the head coach of the Jaguars for one year, but he's already getting NFL Coach of the Year buzz, and it likely will only grow louder considering how easily the Jags dominated the Denver Broncos — considered by most analysts to be the best team in the AFC, if not the entire NFL.
But even without beating the Broncos, it's clear that the Jacksonville coach has, week after week, been defying the odds. Once a dark horse, Coen has turned himself into a frontrunner, alongside other picks like Mike Vrabel and Ben Johnson. All three coaches have one thing in common: All three have turned struggling franchises into powerhouses in a very short period of time.
Of those, Johnson should be immediately ruled out; the Chicago Bears had a slightly better season in 2024 than the Jaguars and the New England Patriots did. Johnson clearly is also an offensive genius, but he has made plenty of questionable calls and has issues with consistency
That leaves Vrabel and Coen. And as Charles Woodson pointed out, what Vrabel did isn't all that surprising or exciting. He did exactly what he was expected to do, whereas Coen has seriously shocked the league with how good he is.
"Liam Coen, coming into the season, the Jacksonville Jaguars — who was excited about Jacksonville?" he said. "Then, the press conference happens. We all heard it, and we thought, ‘Oh man, what a disaster.’ To come back from that press conference and have a team that nobody had confidence in coming into this season, I've gotta go with Liam Coen."
We should also remember that, unlike the Jags, the Patriots are likely only doing as well as they have been due to their ridiculously easy schedule. The same cannot be said for Jacksonville, which has defeated major teams like the Seattle Seahawks, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Los Angeles Chargers, only to still be underrated.
Of course, at the end of the day, Jacksonville could win the Super Bowl and still not crack the top three of the NFL's power rankings, with Coen being overlooked as coach of the year. But Jaguars fans will know who the winner should be, even if the rest of the league remains oblivious to his success.