For the second year in a row, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ offense was good enough that another NFL team appears ready to hire away their offensive coordinator to become a head coach.
Last year it was Dave Canales to the Carolina Panthers. This year, it looks to be Liam Coen to the Jacksonville Jaguars, with the Tampa Bay Times’ Rick Stroud reporting the Buccaneers were operating under the belief that Coen would be offered the job.
The Jaguars formally requested an interview with Coen on January 7 and he had a second interview scheduled for this week.
Tampa Bay won a fourth consecutive NFC South Division title in 2024 but saw its season come to an end with a 23-20 home loss to the Washington Commanders in the NFC Wild Card Round on January 12.
It was Coen’s first season as offensive coordinator and yielded career highs in passing, rushing and touchdowns for quarterback Baker Mayfield and saw the emergence of an elite running back in rookie Bucky Irving as well as another NFL All-Pro honor for offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs.
On January 16, Yahoo! Sports’ Charles Robinson predicted that Coen would be the man tabbed to replace Doug Pederson, who was fired after 3 seasons and a 4-13 record in 2024. Pederson, who won a Super Bowl as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles following the 2017 season, was 22-29 in his time in Jacksonville and led the Jaguars to an AFC South Division title in his first season.
From Robinson’s official X account: “Handicapping it today, I’d slot it: Dallas #Cowboys: Kellen Moore New Orleans #Saints Mike McCarthy New York #Jets: Aaron Glenn Las Vegas #Raiders: Ben Johnson Jacksonville #Jaguars: Liam Coen.”
Coen’s Path to Becoming NFL Head Coach
Coen was a star prep quarterback playing for his father, Tim, at La Salle Academy in Providence, Rhode Island, before a record-setting career at UMass, where he was a 4-year starter from 2004 to 2008.
Coen spent most of the next decade as an assistant coach at colleges on the East Coast, including 2 seasons as the offensive coordinator at the University of Maine before he was hired as the wide receivers coach by the Los Angeles Rams in 2018.
That kicked off a 6-year stretch in which Coen went back and forth between the Rams and the University of Kentucky, with 2 stints as Kentucky’s offensive coordinator, including spending 2022 as the Rams’ offensive coordinator before going back to Kentucky in 2023.
Big Impression in 1 Season in Tampa Bay
In his 1 season with the Buccaneers, Coen made a big impression by not only revamping a running game that went from being the worst in the NFL to 1 of the best and overseeing a career year for Mayfield, who had career highs in passing yards (4,500), passing touchdowns (41), rushing yards (378), rushing touchdowns (3) and yards per carry (6.3).
If Coen does take over as head coach of the Jaguars, it will no doubt be mostly to see if he can work the same magic on 2021 NFL draft No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence as he did on Mayfield in 2024.
Lawrence became the NFL’s highest-paid player of all time when he signed a 5-year, $275 million contract in June 2024 and responded with the worst season of his professional career in every statistical category. He also missed a career-high 7 games and went 2-8 in the 10 games he did start. Lawrence ended the season by going on injured reserve and undergoing shoulder surgery.
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