Coen Talks Shifting Focus To Week 2 After Jaguars' Season-Opening Win: "On to the next one…"

Sep 08, 2025 at 05:22 PM

John Oehser

Jaguars Senior Writer

JACKSONVILLE – The victory mattered. How it happened mattered more.

The Jaguars on Sunday beat the Carolia Panthers in the 2025 regular-season opener, a convincing and encouraging victory in Liam Coen's first game as head coach – and one that came in the manner Coen envisioned.

It was a decidedly good start.

"Now you're on to the next one," he said.

That was a theme when Coen spoke to the media Monday, a day after a 26-10 victory over the Panthers at EverBank Stadium. Players echoed that sentiment – that while 1-0 is important and nice, more is necessary moving forward.

"We know we didn't play a perfect game and we understand where we have to go," veteran defensive end Dawuane Smoot said Monday. "We understand there's more to get. We're focused. It was a great win, but we understand there were a lot of things we didn't do well as well as things we did do well."

Jacksonville Jaguars vs Carolina Panthers

DE Dawuane Smoot (98)

The Jaguars (1-0), tied with the Indianapolis Colts for first place in the AFC South, will play the Cincinnati Bengals (1-0) of the AFC North at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio, Sunday.

"We know we have to come together on Wednesday," Smoot said. "We have a lot of stuff to work on. We're just trying to build on it. The fact that we're even thinking, 'We have more work to do,' that's encouraging."

Veteran center Robert Hainsey called Sunday a "great start."

"You come back today, learn from it and as soon as tomorrow happens, it's pretty much gone," Hainsey said. "We're back to trying to be 1-0 this week. You take what you can from the game, but you start back over 17 times and try to keep building."

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Jacksonville Jaguars vs Carolina Panthers

OL Robert Hainsey (73)

Coen, who on Sunday became the second head coach to win in his first game in the position with the Jaguars, on Monday made clear that as much as he liked the victory, he liked as much how the Jaguars played.

The Jaguars on Sunday ran for 200 yards, their most in a game since 2022. They also played physically on defense, forcing three turnovers. Coen said those and other offseason priorities "definitely showed up" on Sunday.

"It's nice to know a lot of the things we've been preaching since we arrived did show up," Coen said. "Was it perfect by any means? No. But to start Week One physically the way we did, displaying that, getting the win, it allows us to continue to coach hard and then fix some of the issues that we had, clean up the details.

"If this is going to be part of our DNA, for it to show up in Week 1 matters because a lot of the things you're preaching did show up. If it didn't, it just becomes a little bit hard. The players are like, 'Are we really going to listen to all this?'

"It just helps with our whole buy in of everything we're trying to do."

Coen throughout the offseason emphasized an acronym of "F.A.S.T." for how the Jaguars should play: Fundamentally Sound, Attacking, Situational Masters and Toughness.

"We just gave out a bunch of T-Shirts that had players of the game that represented those things," Coen said. "We have the game balls but then we also give out some of those shirts of guys that represented our style of play the right way. We are continuing to kind of magnify that and make sure that that gets emphasized week to week.

"Absolutely think it showed up."