JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jaguars weren’t perfect in their regular season opener, but they didn’t need to be.
Jacksonville controlled the Carolina Panthers in head coach Liam Coen’s debut, dominating on defense and running wild behind Travis Etienne and a much better offensive line in a 26-10 win at EverBank Stadium on Sunday.
All things considered (a weather delay of more than an hour included), it was an all around promising first week of work.
Sure, the Panthers aren’t the elite of the NFL, but the Jaguars have struggled mightily with those types of teams before. To be able to come out in a game that they were favored in and then control things how they wanted was a positive first step for Coen and the Jaguars.
Things get more difficult in a hurry, but a win is progress for a franchise coming off a 4-13 season and a full administrative reset.
Far too often across different coaching regimes, Jacksonville has played down when facing weaker teams. Outside of a 3-all game early, it never felt like the Jaguars were in danger of the Panthers coming back.
There was a lot to like (and a few things to fix) for Coen.
While Etienne had a phenomenal day running the ball, it was the rebuilt defense of Anthony Campanile that came out with ferocity and led the way.
Three takeaways (interceptions by Jourdan Lewis and Foye Oluokun) and a fumble recovery (Lewis) were headliners simply because of how poorly that side of the ball played last year. Jacksonville had nine takeaways with Ryan Nielsen as the defensive coordinator last season. They’re one-third of the way to that number after Week 1.
“Yeah, I actually reached out to him after the game and just kind of let him know I was pleased with the way that he called it,” Coen said of Campanile. “I was pleased with the way that they were prepared. I think they were prepared.”
Trevor Lawrence had a solid but not spectacular debut, but he looked confident in his first regular season game since last December. Coen said Lawrence’s day would have been much better if not for three missed screen passes and two others to Dyami Brown and Brian Thomas Jr., plays that Coen thought went back to footwork.
“So, what’s nice is that I thought he operated the offense really well,” Coen said. “I thought he had great command, used his cadence. We got the free play response. There were some really good things that did show up.”
It helped that Etienne had a monster day, and the offensive line held up in both pass protection and in the run game. That’s been a sore spot for several years and to get that type of performance in Week 1 (with three new starters on the offensive line) was a major step forward. Lawrence wasn’t sacked, the Jaguars converted both of their fourth-down tries and the ground game averaged 6.3 yards per carry.
“So, we probably didn’t push the ball down the field as much as maybe we would like but I was pleased with those guys up front, the communication, guys being on the right people,” Coen said.
There are plenty of things to clean up before the Jaguars head to Cincinnati for Week 2. The penalties (11 for 93 yards) have to stop. It’s one thing to be able to navigate negative yardage against the Panthers, and another to be able to pull it off against Joe Burrow and the Bengals.
“So, hopefully we can clean up some of those things and be able to eliminate those second and 20s that we have to kind of overcome because those are going to become really difficult to overcome as you continue to move forward,” Coen said.