The victory mattered. How it happened mattered more.
The Jaguars on Sunday beat the Carolia Panthers in the 2025 regular-season opener, a convincing and encouraging victory in Liam Coen‘s first game as head coach – and one that came in the manner Coen envisioned.
It was a decidedly good start.
“Now you’re on to the next one,” he said.
That was a theme when Coen spoke to the media Monday, a day after a 26-10 victory over the Panthers at EverBank Stadium. Players echoed that sentiment – that while 1-0 is important and nice, more is necessary moving forward.
“We know we didn’t play a perfect game and we understand where we have to go,” veteran defensive end Dawuane Smoot said Monday. “We understand there’s more to get. We’re focused. It was a great win, but we understand there were a lot of things we didn’t do well as well as things we did do well.”
Coen, who on Sunday became the second head coach to win in his first game in the position with the Jaguars, on Monday made clear that as much as he liked the victory, he liked as much how the Jaguars played.
The Jaguars on Sunday ran for 200 yards, their most in a game since 2022. They also played physically on defense, forcing three turnovers. Coen said those and other offseason priorities “definitely showed up” on Sunday.
“It’s nice to know a lot of the things we’ve been preaching since we arrived did show up,” Coen said. “Was it perfect by any means? No. But to start Week One physically the way we did, displaying that, getting the win, it allows us to continue to coach hard and then fix some of the issues that we had, clean up the details.
“If this is going to be part of our DNA, for it to show up in Week 1 matters because a lot of the things you’re preaching did show up. If it didn’t, it just becomes a little bit hard. The players are like, ‘Are we really going to listen to all this?’
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