Jacksonville Jaguars' One Big Question: Can Liam Coen Help Trevor Lawrence Realize His Potential?

Mayfield was not happy about losing his coach after Coen took the Jaguars job, which is probably good news for Lawrence. 

Now, the question is, how can Coen help Lawrence past all the false starts in his career to date? 

“He hasn't had the stability," Coen said of Lawrence at the scouting combine in February. "That is something that, similar to Baker, you guys asked about in terms of that stability. It's important, but he's going to learn so much from his different experiences, right? For good and for bad. He can take those experiences to really dive into this new process. 

"But I think what's critical is, how do we get him to that standard and that structure and that schedule throughout his process once he gets here? So now, we truly focus on him. Not as much, where he's been, what he's had. He can take and log those experiences, but now, how do we create a little bit of sameness? Give him a schedule, hey, Mondays, this is what we want. Look for your daily rhythm. Tuesdays, within the season with third downs. As we start to move towards the red zone, how do we connect with him to have a schedule? I think that's the consistency that we're going to try to create for him.”

Consistency would be a good thing for Lawrence — as Coen indicated, his new quarterback really hasn't had that for all kinds of reasons. And it has showed up on the field. Whether it's been chemistry issues with his receivers, or Lawrence's own mechanical issues, there hasn't been a sense that from snap to snap, you're going to get the same quarterback. That's a tough way to build an offense. Lawrence's lower and upper body don't always mesh ideally when he's throwing the ball, he'll work from different platforms when he doesn't need to, and as a result, he'll struggle with both velocity and accuracy — especially when throwing downfield. 

Though Lawrence's injuries affected his readiness for offseason programs, Coen has already started with the idea of getting Lawrence's footwork to be more consistent. 

“I mean, as we've gotten him now in the building, we are trying to create black and white lines when it comes to footwork in ways, so that understanding that the game is played in the gray," Coen said in April. "There's so much that occurs on a play, if you can have core fundamentals in footwork and that you believe in and that you trust, in those times of crisis, you have something to actually fall back on and play with a quieted mind.

“It's not really a change—just tweaking. He's extremely talented and he's made some unbelievable plays in critical moments and led some huge comebacks. He's played hurt, he's done so many good things. Now it's just about, okay, how do we fine tune it and just tighten it up a little bit to get him in a place where he's comfortable to cut the ball loose on time and in rhythm regardless of the circumstances? And that's really what it comes down to. Being able to give him some balance around him so that he can feel like, man, not every play is on me. Not every play I’ve got to, every throw I have to make is going to have to be life or death. We've got to create some balance for him so that he can just go play quieted, free of failure and just go let it rip.”

Fortunately, Lawrence seems more than amenable to this kind of coaching. 

"There's some things I've known about my footwork over the years of playing that I felt like have been a little bit of a weakness, so there's some things that we've talked about of just, what are those things? What are we identifying as things to work on? Then, the system is built around timing and tying your feet to your progression, and playing on-time and so it allows you to get backside, it allows you to get to checkdowns or whatever it may be, and you can feel comfortable playing on-time, and more than any system I've ever learned, it's structured and based on that, and it’s so everything's tied exactly to, alright this route is on this timing, so then your next progression is off of this footwork, off this timing, so it all ties in perfect. You don't have multiple routes declaring at the same time which is hard as a quarterback because then you're sitting back there and you’ve got to make a decision before, really the guy’s open or covered.

"So I think they've done a really good job with the system of really thinking through how does it tie into a quarterbacks feet? That’s what we've been talking about and it takes some work and flipping my stance, just some little things like that that are small that many people wouldn't notice, but it is. I have so many banked reps of the other way, I’ve got to just get all these on my own and work them. So once [training] camp comes around, I'm ready to go.”

When Lawrence is ready to go, his targets will be a bit different. Tight end Evan Engram signed with the Denver Broncos in free agency, but the Jaguars did sign underrated ex-Washington Commanders receiver Dyami Brown, Brian Thomas Jr. may well have been the NFL's best rookie receiver in 2024, and who knows what Travis Hunter will bring on that side of the ball? 

“It's really just about creating balance," Coen said on June 5 when asked how putting Hunter on the field along with Thomas will affect opportunities for both. "And okay, if we put them on the same side, well can we dictate maybe where the [double-team] may go and help get one-on-one coverage elsewhere. As we go and see maybe how people defend us that way with Brian, it'll help kind of dictate whether we want to get the one-on-one matchup on the inside or on the outside, at the running back position, at the tight end position. So it kind of helps dictate terms, even though it can be annoying at times to get double teams.”

It would seem that Trevor Lawrence has more around him in a positive sense than he's ever had before in his NFL career. Assuming he can stay healthy, the rest is now up to him.