Michael DiRoccoSep 4, 2026, 06:00 AM ET
Close

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- In the days after the Jacksonville Jaguars' 27-24 playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills in January, team owner Shad Khan huddled with head coach Liam Coen, general manager James Gladstone and executive vice president of football operations Tony Boselli.

Khan was delighted with what the trio accomplished in its first year: a 13-4 record and the AFC South title. But he wanted to know how the Jaguars would avoid a repeat of what happened the past two times his franchise came out of nowhere, won the AFC South and made the playoffs.

"The No. 1 thing is we don't regress," Khan said in late March. "We all remember the prior seasons. You have great success [in 2017 and 2022] and then ... So really, literally after the last home game, all of us were really focused on, OK, once you get over the bitterness of the loss, what are we going to do here that we don't regress?"

In 2018, the Jaguars went 5-11 because of injuries, quarterback Blake Bortles' struggles and a fractured locker room. In 2023, they had a winning record (9-8) but injuries to key offensive players (such as receivers Zay Jones and Christian Kirk) led to a 1-5 finish that Khan called an "organizational failure." Both finishes cost the franchise back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time since 1998-99. There are only three teams in the NFL without back-to-back playoff berths since 1999 -- the Cleveland Browns, Washington Commanders and Jaguars.

Why, Khan asked, will that not be the case in 2026?

After a relatively quiet offseason -- with just one signing in free agency (running back Chris Rodriguez Jr.) and no first-round pick because of last year's Travis Hunter trade -- the Jaguars believe the answers are already in the building. A rock-solid culture is being built by Coen, and Trevor Lawrence is ascending into the top tier of NFL quarterbacks after a promising end to the 2025 season and productive offseason.

"I feel really good," Lawrence said in June. "I feel really healthy. ... I think I'm throwing it as good as ever. I think the chemistry with the guys is really, really good."

If they're correct, the Jaguars will be in the playoffs again come January, marking the first time they would have accomplished back-to-back berths this century. The quest starts Sunday, Sept. 13 against the Browns (1 p.m. ET, CBS).

"Our mindset is we've got to go prove it and go earn it because consistency is the truest measure of performance at the end of the day," Coen said on the first day of training camp. "And there's a lot of guys in this locker room that, when I took this job, have said ... 'How do we become a consistent, respected organization?' That's what this is all about."

Building on Coen's culture

When Coen, Gladstone and Boselli took over the team in 2025, the first thing they tackled was the team culture.

In 2024, the Jaguars went 3-10 in one-score games (the most such losses in a single season in the Super Bowl era), finished 31st in total defense, forced the fewest turnovers in the league (nine) and was outscored by 115 points. Khan fired coach Doug Pederson after that season and GM Trent Baalke weeks later.

In the days after being hired as the next head coach, Coen laid out his master plan for success: play fast and aggressively, be fundamentally sound, be good at situational football, and be mentally and physically tough.

To do that the Jaguars needed a roster full of players who understood that standard -- they drafted a "unicorn" in Hunter after trading up to No. 2 overall and added players familiar with Coen like center Robert Hainsey. There was also a focus on synergy and alignment between Coen, Gladstone and Boselli, something that was not present under the previous regime of Pederson and Baalke.

It was evident early in the season that things had changed. In Week 3, the Jaguars beat the Houston Texans 17-10 with a late touchdown and game-saving interception. Then in the following week, the Jaguars outrushed the San Francisco 49ers by nearly double (151 to 83) in a 26-21 victory. And the week after that, they beat Kansas City Chiefs 31-28 on "Monday Night Football," getting a 99-yard interception return for a touchdown by Devin Lloyd and a game-winning touchdown run from Lawrence with 23 seconds remaining.

Things stalled a little bit with back-to-back losses to the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams, as well as a blown 19-point fourth-quarter lead at Houston in Week 10. But the Jaguars finished the season with eight consecutive victories, clinching their third AFC South title in franchise history.

The winning culture the front office wanted was established. But in 2026, the quick success of last season doesn't matter.

"We haven't done anything to rest on our laurels here," Coen said. "We're not in a place to hang out and just kind of chill, right? Everything we're doing is trying to attack an edge. Last year was about finding an edge and creating an edge. And now we are attacking these edges with a relentless pursuit."

Players have embraced Coen's approach of starting over.

"We've talked about it as players, just that we have the opportunity to continue to get better," said Hainsey, who joined the Jaguars last year after playing under Coen with the Buccaneers. "But like I said, it doesn't just happen. It happens because we do the right things now and throughout training camp and during the weeks throughout the season and all those things."

Defensive tackle DaVon Hamilton was a rookie in 2020 when the Jaguars went 1-15. He was part of the 2022 division title team and the falloff in 2023 and 2024. But he says what the Jaguars did last season feels much more sustainable.

"We all buy into [the culture reset]," he said. "... I think you could buy into a culture and still not be successful, but we're not really worried about necessarily the results right now. Just trying to home in on our technique and what we need to do, where we need to be at. And then that's going to lead us to our results."

Is Lawrence unlocked?

The 2021 No. 1 overall pick has been an enigma in Jacksonville since being drafted.

There was a dysfunctional rookie season with head coach Urban Meyer, then multiple injuries (toe, ankle, shoulder, knee, concussion) and sporadic spurts of elite play under Pederson from 2022-24. Even the first nine games of the 2025 season under Coen were puzzling: a 41.4 Total QBR, 222 passing yards per game, 10 touchdowns, seven interceptions, 172 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns. The Jaguars went 5-4.

After that? He was one of the NFL's best quarterbacks with a league-best 24 total touchdowns, 77 QBR (third), 251 passing yards per game and only five turnovers in the last eight games of 2025. The Jaguars went 8-0.

Lawrence's resurgence was sparked by Coen's "let it rip" direction in a meeting after the Week 10 Texans loss. But the feeling inside the franchise is that he will let it rip again in 2026, based on how Lawrence has improved this summer.

"If I had to pick one or two [words to describe Lawrence's offseason], progress would probably be in there," offensive coordinator Grant Udinski said. "[Also with] process, consistency. The consistency to show up day after day after day and build on what we had last year, but not take any of those details and fundamentals and foundational steps for granted and continue to work over and over ... whether it's a drop and technique and fundamentals or whether it's a read or whether it's just calling a certain play or a certain motion, all of those things are so important."

For Lawrence, this offseason was about gaining a graduate-level understanding of Coen's offense, not rehabbing from an injury or changing his footwork the way he did last year. Nor was it adjusting to a new playcaller, as he did in 2023.

Lawrence is more confident in his progressions, adjustments, when to kill a play and what to call instead. His mind, he said, is calmer, and he can play more freely the way he did in the second half of last season. It helps, too, that every offensive coach is back and the only change is the addition of run game coordinator Brian Picucci, who coached Coen as a player at UMass and worked with him at Kentucky and in Tampa Bay.

"When it's your first time with a new staff and new players, coaches, all those things, when it's all new, there is a level of just discomfort," Lawrence said. "You don't really know how things are going to go or what the schedule's going to be and you haven't built the relationships yet with all the new staff to where you know each other really well. And I think now that we've had a year of working together, there is that comfort in the relationship piece of it."

Lawrence also has the benefit of the team's top five pass catchers returning in 2026: Parker Washington, Brian Thomas Jr., Brenton Strange, Jakobi Meyers and Hunter. That familiarity is invaluable.

"On the field, off the field, the communication is different and then obviously the trust he's having in me on some of these passes is really cool," said Washington, who had 26 catches for 454 yards and three touchdowns in the final four games of last season. "I know a couple years ago, he probably wouldn't throw some of the passes he's throwing now to me, so it's just really cool for him to have that trust in me."

Lawrence believes everything is in place for him and the offense to continue to perform at the level it did over the final eight games (an NFL-best 32.5 points per game).

"I think just the mental side, staying sharp on everything so I can play fast like I was at the end of the season and the chemistry and rapport with me and the skill guys is so important," Lawrence said. "... You saw when we started clicking at the end of the last season how efficient and how sharp we were and some of the plays we were able to make."

What success looks like in 2026

The Jaguars' 13-4 record in 2025 -- the second best in franchise history -- and division title earned them a first-place schedule in 2026. That includes games against both teams that played in the AFC Championship Game (New England and Denver), back-to-back games in London against 2025 playoff teams (Philadelphia and Houston) and road games in Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas. Seven of their final 10 games are on the road, too.

It's possible, and maybe even likely, that the Jaguars could be a better team in 2026 with a worse record. ESPN's Football Power Index gives them a 52.4% chance to make the playoffs and projects them to finish 9-8. But if they snap their 21st century streak of no postseason appearances in back-to-back seasons, it won't be a step backward.

"I think there's a lot of different ways to view success," Coen said. "I think that something we need to be guarded against as a staff and as an organization is, we have a lot of room to improve. We will need to get better and improve and that may not be 13 wins."

If there is one moment that the Jaguars can dwell upon, it's the feeling they had walking off the field following their loss to Buffalo in the wild-card round.

"This team understands that there was meat left on the bone [last season], I think," Coen said. "And the way they've attacked this offseason, I think, is representative of that hunger and wanting to try to put ourselves in the best position to go earn those [opportunities in 2026]."

What to expect from the Jaguars' Liam Coen and Trevor Lawrence in 2026

Discussion