A top priority for new Jacksonville Jaguars’ head coach Liam Coen will be maximizing Trevor Lawrence’s sky-high abilities at the quarterback position.
We all know this, and when thinking about how Coen might go about doing that, the passing game concepts, play designs, and giving Lawrence the autonomy to change plays may all come to mind first.
But a catalyst behind help Lawrence achieve that high level of play actually doesn’t have anything to do with the passing game. It centers around getting the running game going.
With Tampa Bay as their offensive coordinator, Coen transformed the Bucs’ run game. During the 2022 and 2023 seasons, Tampa Bay ranked last in yards per rush each year. However, under Coen, the Buccaneers averaged 5.2 yards per rush–the third-highest mark in football.
Behind that success on the ground was an adaptable scheme from Coen that utilized a number of different looks in the run game. The benefit of this is that it keeps that defense off balanced, but he also tailored the run game calls to what the backs on the roster did well in order to maximize their skill sets.
“The biggest thing that we talk about is playing the game on their side of the ball,” said Coen via the Bucs’ team site. “We do not want to play the game on our side of the football. That’s not how we’re going to win any games.
“So, creating movement, how do we do that? Giving these guys different ways of hitting blocks, whether it’s a B [gap] combination on an outside zone away, how does that make it feel like a deuce combination on the front side of a gap scheme? Trying to let the defense feel multiple different ways of getting hit while also creating an edge for us and trying to change the math in our favor.”
When Lawrence was speaking with reporters at his end of season press conference, he was asked about the predictability of the Jaguars’ offense. One way, as Lawrence described, to counter that is with a more consistent running game.
Moving the ball steadily on the ground keeps the offense ahead of the sticks and out of predictable passing situations. When operating from short down-and-distance situations, the offense has the upper-hand and has the entire playbook open to them, which can then create opportunities in the passing game to be exploited.
Conversely, when regularly playing catch-up in long down-and-distance situations, the defense has the advantage with the pass rush able to pin its ears back and the secondary knowing that a passing play is coming.
There’s also only so many routes that can be run when a team has to pick up eight yards, for example, which adds to the predictability that the Jaguars were battling last season.
Also hurting Jacksonville in this regard last year was that they were often trailing in games, which again, hurt their ability to lean on their running game.
The Jaguars finished the 2024 season averaging 4.2 yards per carry as a team, which ranked 19th. They have a strong foundation in the backfield with Travis Etienne and Tank Bigsby, but as Lawrence mentioned, it’s about the down-to-down consistency when it comes to the running game–which Coen has shown he can drastically improve.
