Just be happy it’s over.
This is going to be a defining moment for this new era of Jaguars leadership. I like Liam Coen, and I think he has done some good things. But now he finds himself facing the first real adversity of his career. How will he handle it?
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That is the difference between average coaches, good coaches and great coaches. How they handle slides. How they handle losses. In back-to-back weeks, the Jags have looked lost. They have buried themselves. A ton of the blame is on the players, but at the end of the day, it is the job of the guy in charge to figure it out. Right now, it doesn’t feel like he has those answers. And how can I blame him? What’s working?
The defense got picked apart early. The guy who was supposed to be your best wide receiver is struggling to catch. The offensive line is getting wrecked. And if a Jags player breathes the wrong way, the refs are throwing a flag. So, what are you supposed to do? That is the hard question. With the bye week here, Coen will have a week to try and figure it out.
Is a week long enough for the Jags to clean up the sloppy play that has hurt them all year?
- Rams: 13 penalties for 113 yards.
- Seahawks: four penalties for 76 yards.
- Chiefs: four penalties for 25 yards.
- 49ers: 12 penalties for 90 yards.
- Texans: nine penalties for 70 yards.
- Bengals: six penalties for 55 yards.
- Panthers: 11 penalties for 93 yards.
Ask yourself how they beat the Chiefs? They played clean football and didn’t hurt themselves. Ask yourself why they lost to the Rams. Well, because the same problems that have shown up for most of the games this season showed up in the worst way. They had 113 yards in penalties. The Jags have been flagged more than any team in the league.
How do you fix that? Some of it might mean personnel changes. Some of it might mean simplifying some of the stuff the team does or wants to do. Some of it might mean players taking some ownership and fixing it. But this is the first real big crossroads of Coen’s head coaching career because the team is 4-3. The train isn’t off the tracks. But if he doesn’t stabilize things during the bye week, it could be off the tracks really quickly. They have to figure out how to stop this thing from snowballing.