How Jaguars' Liam Coen Is Using Accountability to His Advantage

Coen's Accountability

For Coen, this isn't just a coaching strategy he picked up out of nowhere. As a player, his coaches before him did it, leaving an impact and setting a standard. Then as a young coach in the NFL, he learned what it means to be a head coach and take one on the chin for your team.

"I thought when I was a player, Don Brown did it a lot as the head coach at UMass. He did a really nice job of just—man, we ask them to be accountable, the players, we want accountability from the players. Not to say it's their fault, it's just because then we can fix it and move on," Coen said on Monday.

"When you just say like, yeah, that was me, I got to fix that. And so, then you can—there's an openness now to learn and grow from the mistake and everybody can learn from that mistake. It's not, you're not correcting the player, you're correcting the play and ultimately everybody can learn something from that. guys, this isn't good enough by me either. It continues to hold each other accountable.”

"And then I thought Sean [Rams Head Coach Sean McVay] did a nice job of it as well when I was in LA in terms of there's a standard of execution that we hold and that we have and that everybody is held to and we're no different as coaches. And so, I just think that when you can put a little bit on yourself and, and show, guys, this isn't good enough by me either. It continues to hold each other accountable.”

The Jaguars' locker room has picked up on Coen's lead-by-example style, and the hope is it can carry over into their first post-bye contest vs. Pete Carroll and the Las Vegas Raiders.

"I feel like no man is bigger than the program. I feel like when you got a coach that's accountable, it is only right everybody else is accountable," Jaguars running back Travis Etienne said in the locker roon on Monday.

"I feel like Liam does a great job. Even when we were winning, he was still being accountable, taking it on the chest, you know, so being behind a coach like that, like there's no hiding, you know, you can't hide from anything. Everything is on film. You are what you put on your resume. And he understands that from a coaching standpoint. And I feel it trickles down to the players."