JACKSONVILLE – This one matters. That's self-evident.

"It's important, for sure," Liam Coen said.

But Coen this week said his first game as the Jaguars' head coach is crucial for reasons beyond winning. The Jaguars' 2025 regular-season opener against the Carolina Panthers at EverBank Stadium Sunday is also a regime opener – and all that that implies.

"We want to go and set the tone, 100 percent," he said.

Coen, speaking following Monday's practice at the Miller Electric Center, covered multiple topics – including wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr. and Panthers starting quarterback Bryce Young.

But with Sunday's game not only his first as the Jaguars' head coach but his first as a head coach on any level, the importance of the game itself was a major topic.

"I wouldn't say I want these guys to put an all-or-nothing approach into the first game just because you don't know how any season's going to play out," he said, "but it is important for us to get the ball moving a little bit in terms of playing the way that we want to play.

"Whatever the result is, we have to live with that ultimately. But if we show, coming out, playing with great energy, execution, playing tough … Is it going to be perfect? We all know it's not, but it is important for those guys to be able to get some confidence in a game setting."

Coen on Monday joked that while coaches emphasized process over results throughout the offseason and into training camp, the time has come when results matter. Coaches spent recent months implementing systems and teaching fundamentals necessary to those systems, with Sunday the first real test for those systems and fundamentals.

Coen called Sunday "very important" in that vein.

"When they're showing improvement and you do execute in all three phases, it helps create more buy in for what you're trying to do," Coen said. "Now they're listening, and you have their attention. I wouldn't say the season's lost if we don't have as much success that we would like to have, but you definitely want to see that jump we're talking about in terms of the physicality, the toughness, the nature that we want to play the game.

"That's really what I'm looking for, and to see how we respond to adversity. Something's going to happen in the game that doesn't go our way. I want to see how we respond to that, and that will help me as we move throughout the season seeing how we do that, and that helps guys come together as well as a team."

NOTABLE

• Coen on Young, entering his third season as the Panthers' starting quarterback:

"He can hurt you in a few different ways. You let that dude out of the pocket, he can be a problem because he uses his legs as a runner but also he remains a passer as he does scramble and move around. He improved a ton last year over the season. When they're able to run it and establish the run game and get their mid-zone going and get him kind of on the move and playing the position, he can be dangerous. Our rush plan has to be extremely coordinated. We have to understand he wants to escape at times, and he does have a quick release. We have to affect the quarterback in more ways than one."

NOTABLE

• Coen on Monday reiterated what he said last week – that Thomas, after struggling at times with a few drops early in camp, finished the preseason strong with a strong practice against Miami before the team's Preseason Week 3 loss to the Dolphins. Coen said Thomas followed that with a strong week last week during the "bye" between the preseason and regular season.

"It will be important to continue to be able to get him involved early [Sunday]," Coen said. "For any skill player, you really want to try to get them a touch early so that those guys can get into the game, feel like they're in the game, and not kind of being taken away, if you will. They have a really good corner on defense over there in [Jaycee] Horn]. That's going to be a great matchup. How do we get BT either one on one with him or move him around, whatever it is, but the last few practices have been better for him."