Even as the Jacksonville Jaguars reeled off win after win during the second half of last season, this team still seemed to fly under the radar nationally.
Head coach Liam Coen, however, used that as motivation on a weekly basis, seemingly finding a new talking point to highlight with his team going into every game.
Most notably, this came ahead of last season’s matchup with the Broncos, when Denver head coach Sean Payton referred to the Jaguars as a “small market” team. Coen made sure that the Jaguars players were aware of that comment throughout the week.
The lack of national recognition last season, despite going 13-4, only fueled the Jaguars.
On a recent appearance on ‘In Good Company with Mitch Morse,’ quarterback Trevor Lawrence discussed how the Jaguars are viewed nationally and whether or not that can continue to be an advantage for them in 2026.
“I think there’s always going to be that little brother feeling of our team in Jacksonville, which is a good thing, because I think our city has such a chip on its shoulder,” Lawrence said, via Big Cat Country. “Our team has a chip on its shoulder. We’re biased, obviously, and we kind of think everyone’s against us at times, but I think it is true. You look at it, there’s not a lot of people that really want the Jaguars to be good. Like, it’s a smaller market. People love to talk about every other team.
“There’s always things that you can find to kind of say, ‘All right, people still don’t really respect us.‘ And I’m sure as far as teams, maybe that’s different. I don’t know. But yeah, we can we can find plenty. But to your point, you can’t rely solely on that is your only motivation. There has to be a standard of consistency. It’s like, okay, this is just who we are. We want to be in the hunt every year. It doesn’t matter what people think. This is how we go about our business.”
Along those lines, one of the qualities of the 2025 Jaguars that stands out most was this team’s resiliency under Coen.
The best example of this came after blowing a 19-point fourth-quarter lead to Houston. At that point, the Jaguars were 5-4, and it felt like a fork in the road moment for this team.
But Jacksonville would go on to win eight in a row, secure the division title, and host a playoff game, which tells us a lot about the makeup of this team under Coen’s leadership.
This article originally appeared on Jaguars Wire: Can Jaguars replicate last season’s edge in 2026?
Reporting by Paul Bretl, Jaguars Wire / Jaguars Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
