Jaguars coach Liam Coen discusses Jacksonville’s improvement in his first season, developing Trevor Lawrence and being a finalist for AP NFL Coach of the Year and Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart talks about his excitement playing for new coach John Harbaugh, his playing style and being a finalist for AP NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Rob Maaddi, host: Welcome to On Football, I’m Rob Maaddi. Super Bowl 60 is set. New England Patriots against the Seattle Seahawks, a rematch from 11 years ago when the Patriots beat Seattle after Russell Wilson threw an interception from the 1-yard line in the final minute. I was there. Everybody’s still wondering and waiting for Marshawn Lynch to get the ball at the 1-yard line. We’ll talk more about the game next week when I’m live in San Francisco. This week, we don’t have Pro Picks, so we have two special guests, Jaguars head coach Liam Coen and New York Giants rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart. Stay tuned for those conversations.
Biggest news in the NFL this week is that Bill Belichick is not going to be a first ballot Hall of Famer. ESPN reported that he did not get the required 40 votes out of 50 to make it in his first year of eligibility. Bill Belichick won six Super Bowls as a head coach with the Patriots, two as an assistant with the Giants. He has more Super Bowl rings than anyone in the history of the NFL. If his resume is not Hall of Fame worthy on the first try, who’s is?
Liam Coen went to Jacksonville after one season as the offensive coordinator in Tampa Bay where he helped Baker Mayfield have a career season and he quickly turned the Jaguars around, led them to 13 wins and the AFC South championship. He is a finalist for the AP NFL Coach of the Year Award. Just to come into Jacksonville, take over a team from where they were and turn them into a playoff team, a division champion, to have the success you did. What does it mean that you would be even considered for Coach of the Year, Liam?
Liam Coen, Jaguars coach: Yeah, it’s a great question to even be in the consideration is an honor itself, right? I grew up in coaching my whole life spent about football and that’s all I’ve ever known and and really was exposed to at a very young age and very thankful for my father, Tim, to be able to be a great guidance for me throughout my whole life really and journey to lead up into this point. And to work with so many great coaches and to do it with Tony Boselli and James Gladstone, to come in and take a 4-13 team to 13-4 in your first years, definitely a turnaround for sure that you were excited about being a part of and now the work really gets started at this point.
MAADDI: When you take over that team and you know the roster and the talent and what they have, is there a point where you kind of look at it and go, I’ve got something here that I could turn like this quickly. Like it’s a difficult task. And I know other coaches have done it. Vrabel’s done it this year in New England. Ben Johnson has done it in Chicago. But how early did you recognize, Liam, that you had that kind of talent that you could make something like this happen?
COEN: Yeah, this was the only job that I was fortunate enough to interview for and this was the job that I wanted. This was the one that you looked at and said, okay, when you’ve got a quarterback in this league, you’ve got a shot, right? And very fortunate to be able to work with Trevor on a day-to-day basis. And he was so cool about getting started and working through the process of learning the new system, pouring himself and his work into it and the way that he approached it on a day-to-day basis. And then you’ve got some pieces, right? We’ve got multiple players on the defensive side of the football that have made huge impacts over the course of their NFL careers and some guys that, you know, just needed to have a next step in their career, take a next to help us get to ultimately where we were able to go this year. And so you looked at the roster and we’re excited about some of the pieces. And then I think James did a great job of adding some of the guys in free agency through the draft, obviously, and then also during the season when we were able to acquire Jakobi Meyers, which really helped our offense take off.
MAADDI: You know what it’s like to take a quarterback who, with Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay, who’s got a ton of talent and just elevate their game. What exactly does that entail when somebody’s got that talent, but maybe it’s just, it hasn’t been maximized yet?
COEN: Just trying to pour into them as much as possible and let them feel that, right. Feel the belief, feel the amount of time, brain power work that goes into trying to help a quarterback play to the best of his abilities, right, and so much of that is timing and circumstances and the circumstances around that player. And so how much are you pouring into not only Trevor and … the fundamentals, technique, footwork, brain power that goes into coaching the quarterback, but also are you making his life and his job easier when he does have the opportunity, right? So not every throw is a gotta have it. Not every third down is a got to have it, and so you allow him to go play freely knowing that, boy, trust the process around him. He trusts the offensive line to protect for that much longer. He trusts the run game to where he can hand it off, gain the yards to keep the defense off balance. So much of that goes into helping a quarterback reach his potential. And so many of these guys, the best ones, they want all the tools, right? They want all of the protection pieces and tools. They want all the answers so that they can go out and solve problems, right. I mean, so much of this position is living in the gray. But trying to make that as black and white as possible. And so when you’re able to provide the tools, give them the freedom to fail, especially early on, during minicamp, training camp, preseason, and we loaded them up pretty good. And ultimately, I think those guys really want that, that leadership and command.
MAADDI: I love to ask successful leaders, what it takes to be a successful leader in your mind? What does that take? I coach flag football. I coach my daughters in flag football and as you’re talking right there, I just thought, like I’ve impressed upon my one of my girls is the quarterback and I’ve impressed upon her so much not to throw interceptions, that she’s not taking enough risks downfield. And as you just said that it just clicked for me.
COEN: Yeah, Rob, we had a similar conversation with Trevor after our Houston loss. We, you know, 20-point lead in the fourth quarter. We lost that game. And after that game, we had a lot of conversations with a lot of players in the team, but Trevor specifically was, he was really trying to run the offense, take care of the football, all the things that we do ask of our quarterbacks to do. Really it was about man just go cut it loose and let it rip and and dude be you and I think that’s really my answer about leadership is when you get into any of these roles and responsibilities and leadership roles regardless if you’re a head coach of the flag football team or if you are a head coach of an NFL team you got that position because somebody obviously believed in you to be that position and so what I would say is just be you, you know, be yourself. Because your authentic self, your most truest authentic self is usually when you’re living in gratitude. And that allows you to continue to be the best version of yourself and to attack each and every day with that mindset and mentality. And look, you’re able to learn from so many people in this world, especially in this profession. I’ve been very fortunate to work with some great coaches and you take something from all of them, right? Well, but it really comes down to being you and being yourself. And I think that that’s something that’s really helped our leadership group and myself throughout this first season.
MAADDI: Jaxson Dart had an impressive rookie season with the New York Giants, the first-round pick, despite some injuries and missing some time and starting the season as a backup quarterback. Played well enough to earn a finalist spot for the AP NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Award. Jaxson, congratulations on being an AP NFL Offensive rookie of the year finalist. You had a great season. You went through a lot of ups and downs. What does it mean to you to even be considered for this award?
Jaxson Dart, Giants quarterback: Definitely something to be excited about. I think that you hit it on the head, like there was a lot of adversity that went into my rookie year, from head coach being fired to a lot injuries around me and whatnot. But I think when you look at the grand scheme of things, obviously you want to win more games and that’s what we’re gonna do moving forward, but there’s definitely a lot of things to build off of going into the future.
MAADDI: There’s this crazy stat. A lot of coaches have been fired in their first season with a first-round pick quarterback. And a lot of those QBs end up having success with the next coach. Have you talked to anyone along the way as you try and navigate through this process right now?
DART: You know, there hasn’t been too many people that I’ve talked to just because, you know, I don’t want to get into the comparisons of people’s careers and their experiences. I think it’s definitely, um, you know good to, to reach out and have, uh, words of wisdom, uh, from that standpoint. I also think that I, you, know, from just an offseason standpoint of, you know the, the other quarterbacks that I’m around, uh my quarterback coaches, um you know I feel like they’ve seen it all. They’ve been a part of so many just different situations, a lot of chaos. I think those guys have been the ones who I’ve really relied on to weather certain storms. And I’m definitely, you know, really optimistic about the future and Coach Harbaugh coming in and, you know the people that we have in the organization. So from that standpoint, I’m really excited.
MAADDI: I’ve known Coach Harbaugh since he was a special teams coordinator way back in Philadelphia. He’s one of the best leaders I’ve ever been around. How excited are you to play for him, Jax?
DART: I can’t wait. I’ve had a lot of conversations with coach before he had the job finalized and at points where we were just talking in a room and the room had to get dispersed just because of how long that we were talking. So he’s a coach that I just am really excited to play for from obviously his resume from a coaching standpoint, but just him as a person. Like you said, he’s like a general, he is a leader of men. And can create a culture. So he’s had a winning culture everywhere that he’s been and every single year that he has coached. So I can’t wait to have that instilled into our organization and to start stacking more wins.
MAADDI: We often hear the criticism, you gotta go down, you gotta out of bounds, you gotta try and protect your body. But I can understand as someone who plays just in rec leagues and men’s leagues and is stupid enough to dive head first and do all these dumb things with my body, I know that competitive instinct takes over and sometimes you’re trying to get that first down or you’re tryin’ to get to that touchdown. Just how hard is it to balance that? Being smart, taking care of your body and being competitive and goin’ out there and tryin’ do what’s best to win the game for your team.
DART: I think you hit it. I played this game in a way that I feel like I’m fearless. I’m going to do whatever it takes to win. In situations, obviously, you have to be smart. And I think those are just things that I’ve learned on. I feel I’ve gotten a lot better throughout the whole entire season when it came to those situations of when to or when not to. But at the same time, I’m gonna play the game that I played my whole entire life that’s got me to this point. And you know, I feel like I’m not going to change the way that I play just to satisfy somebody’s opinion or anything like that. And I think that when you also look at the grand scheme of things, I mean, the last four or five, you know last four years of my entire career, I’ve only missed two games. So, you, know, when people have the availability conversation, at the same time, I want to say, just look at my track record, I’ve been out there for my team and I’ve been available to somebody that, a team can depend on. So. I think that you just continue to learn, continue to grow, but at the same time you got to keep playing the game that you play.
MAADDI: Congratulations again. Hope to see you at NFL Honors. You’ve got an exciting career ahead and I look forward to seeing it.
DART: Appreciate you Rob, thanks for taking the time.
MAADDI: That’s it for this week. Thank you to Liam Coen and Jaxson Dart. Thank you for watching and listening to on football. And thanks to Haya Panjwani and Guillermo Gonzalez for producing this episode. Please check out APnews.com for more Pro Picks, On Football analysis and all NFL news.
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