Liam Coen Sees Encouraging Growth in Jaguars' Young Defender

Vs. the Panthers, he racked up six combined tackles, one for a loss, and one pass defended. He was especially effective in the run game, earning a top-10 cornerback grade from Pro Football Focus in that area.

He'll need to be even better in his second outing of the season, matching up against Ja'Marr Chase , Tee Higgins, and the rest of the Cincinnati Bengals' explosive passing game led by quarterback Joe Burrow. It'll be huge for the Jaguars' chances to pull off the road upset if Campbell can continue his strong start to the campaign.

Tyson Campbell is still growing

Tyson Campbell had a disappointing year in 2024, regressing along with the rest of the Jacksonville Jaguars' defense. He certainly wasn't their biggest issue on that side of the ball, but it wasn't exactly an encouraging fourth season for the former second-round pick out of Georgia.

PFF graded him a 55.7 in coverage last year, which is well below average and the expectation for a starting CB1. However, he showed enough in that campaign, training camp, and preseason to retain his spot on the depth chart for the new regime. Still only 25 years old, Campbell has the potential to keep growing, and Head Coach Liam Coen has already seen a lot of it from his young corner:

"[He's] a guy that has embraced everything around here, in terms of the way that he’s tried to go about working in the offseason program. His conditioning — he’s just been in great shape. Obviously, he’s been battling, and that’s the one thing about Tyson, is when he plays with confidence and he trusts and believes in his abilities that he has, he can be dominant. He can be dominant."

"It’s just continuing to have that belief, go get your hands on people, go use your length, go use your traits, to go play physical and take the fight to them, that is going to be key and critical this week. Obviously, not just for Tyson but for our whole unit in the back end, especially, but I do think that Tyson has continued to do this (while motioning upwards), and now this is a great challenge for him against quality opponents.”

Tyson Campbell will be tasked with slowing down two elite wideouts against the Cincinnati Bengals in Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. If the Jaguars are to stand a chance, he'll have to excel in Week 2 and continue his ascension.