Liam Coen, Jaguars Face Harsh Reality of Road Games

How playing on the road affected the Jaguars

As mentioned, this Week 2 defeat was Liam Coen's first road game as an NFL head coach. He was able to lead his Jacksonville Jaguars to victory in his debut, but playing away from home is a whole different animal. The weather may have been in the Jags' favor, but the crowd was boisterous and effective, even despite losing their starting quarterback and star in Joe Burrow.

The story of the game, aside from Burrow's exit, will be Jacksonville's self-sabotage throughout the contest. Among their many errors were several "illegal shift" penalties, caused by prohibited movements by the offense pre-snap, such as an offensive player not settling into formation a full second before the snap. The Jaguars did this multiple times, costing them five yards each instance. Coen was asked about the flags after the game:

"It’s like you guys kind of alluded to it during the week. First time on the road — silent cadence. We had some motions and shifts in the offense in order to take advantage of 91 [Trey Hendrickson], and to try to help with 91 in some ways. Looking at it, [we installed] too much in the game plan for these guys to go execute. That’s something that we have to be better at as coaches and go figure out. You know, we put too much on them unnecessarily, especially in the first game on [the] road, knowing they were going to have some people here at this game. So we gotta look at that.”

The Jaguars were bound to have growing pains along the way, as did the coaching staff. Their first road game of this new era may not have ended the way they hoped, but it'll be a valuable teaching moment for the rest of the season.

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