Last year, Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton called the Jacksonville Jaguars a small-market team ahead of their Week 16 matchup. What was supposed to be a compliment ended up giving the Jags fresh bulletin board material. Payton might've made the same mistake again.
Payton met with head coach Liam Coen in the offseason and gave him a warning that could come back to haunt him when Jacksonville plays the Broncos in Week 2.
Sean Payton and the Broncos are coming for the Jaguars (supposedly)
Heading into the Week 2 game against Denver, Liam Coen met with the local media. He stated that he kind of cleared the air with Payton, but Payton told him that he's coming for the Jaguars.
"I talked to Sean at the owners' meetings, and he gave me a little love for it, but he said, 'We're coming. I'm coming for you this year.' I mean, it's great," Coen told reporters (12:17 mark). " It's all in competition, and I've learned so much football from Sean Payton, and he's allowed me in his building in New Orleans, and got to talk to him a ton. Like when we're at the owners' meetings, and you just listen to the stories, and a lot of it is insightful in ways."
Coen continued, "You can learn something from every conversation with him because of the experience, and a lot of the ways that I've typically kind of modeled calling plays. A lot of it stemmed from what I learned from him and what I watched from him, and how it affects and attacks the defense, not just with scheme, but with personnel change and be able to mix it in. And I've always had a ton of respect, so I can't anticipate much this week."
The Broncos are coming off a disappointing loss in which they missed 28 tackles. But despite their lack of success on defense, Coen won't take them lightly. If anything, he expects Denver to bounce back.
Related: Primetime snub in Week 2 just gave the small-market Jags the motivation they didn't know they needed
Sean Payton inadvertedly gave Liam Coen and the Jaguars added motivation
Circling back to Sean Payton's warning to Liam Coen, that's the last thing he should have said. Sure, he's a Super Bowl-winning head coach, and he's a renowned offensive mind across the league. This is a roundabout way to say that nobody will argue against his football credentials. The issue is that Coen is the kind of head coach who will use the slightest sign of disrespect, or what you think was a benign comment, to motivate his team.
Last season, it was the small-market comments. This year, he could say something along the lines of, "How dare those pesky Broncos say that they're coming for us when they lost to us last year." Simply put, Payton just gave the Jags even more motivation, and he didn't even realized.
Granted, this doesn't guarantee that the Jaguars will beat the Broncos in Week 2, but expect to see a highly-motivated Jacksonville show up at Empower Stadium at Mile High.
Add us as a preferred source on Google