I
t is time for football. On Saturday, August 9, the Jacksonville Jaguars will take the field for the first time in 2025 when they host the Pittsburgh Steelers to open up the preseason. It will be the first opportunity for Jaguars personnel, fans and everyone in between to catch a glimpse of what this year’s Jaguars team could look like. And with the game only a couple of days away, head coach Liam Coen revealed what the plan is for the game.
Playing starters in preseason is always a tricky situation, with teams wanting their stars to shake off the rust and build a rapport with their new teammates, while also needing to keep them safe from injury. But in the Jaguars case, with the team coming off of a rough season and entering a new era, Coen plans to play the starters in the opener.
Coen’s Plan for the Game
Coen’s decision comes after speaking with a handful of key players, such as Trevor Lawrence, and factoring in how each of his players is still adjusting to the new scheme. With players like Lawrence, getting them in the game against the Steelers is vital as it will allow them to play in the new scheme in an actual game while giving them the opportunity to also build more chemistry with new teammates.
Earlier in the week, Coen and Co. were unsure about what their plan for the game would be and while he still does not know how long the starters will play, fans can look forward to watching guys like Travis Hunter make their NFL debut.
“Not yet. We’re still working through it,” Coen said earlier in the week about the plan for the starters. “We wanted to kind of get through these next two padded days, to evaluate, see where we’re at as a group, before making that decision. We’ve obviously had conversations as a staff and with Tony [Executive Vice President of Football Operations Tony Boselli] and James [General Manager James Gladstone] as well, but we’re going to let these two days play out, see what it looks like, and make a decision from there.”
Coen’s Past NFL Jobs Helped Him Make a Decision
Before getting hired by the Jaguars, Coen held various assistant coaching jobs with multiple NFL teams including the Los Angeles Rams and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And while this is the first season that Coen has been a head coach at any level, his time with other NFL organizations and seeing how they operate helped him figure out the best plan of attack for the preseason opener.
“That is the ultimate debate. Obviously came from being in LA [Los Angeles]. It was, shoot, your ones and twos don’t really play,” Coen said. “So you’re ultimately, playing with a lot of younger guys, which is kind of the whole selling point in LA, is you do that and it helps you get, CFAs [Compensatory Free Agent] and get guys to come in because you know you’re going to get a lot of great quality reps in film. Whereas in Tampa, we played some of the guys and got some quality work. So, it’s definitely a difficult decision that we’ve been wrestling, back and forth with a little bit, but we’ll have a better idea tomorrow.”
2025 will be a big season for the Jaguars, who are hungrier than ever to return to the postseason for the first time since 2022. And in order for them to do that, having their stars step up and perform will be of vital importance.
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