Liam Coen and James Gladstone hit the NFL combine on Tuesday and covered quite a bit of ground on how they plan to rebuild the Jaguars.
There’s a lot of work to do for Coen and Gladstone, Jacksonville’s youthful new braintrust who owner Shad Khan believes can deliver after years of struggles for the franchise. The Jaguars are coming off a 4-13 season that can only be described as a complete failure after Khan invested more than $300 million in guaranteed money last offseason to players who all underperformed. That included franchise quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who ended the season on injured reserve following shoulder surgery, and wasn’t very successful before that.
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The hire of Coen is no doubt geared around salvaging Lawrence and helping the fifth-year player reach some type of stable ground. Gladstone, the 34-year-old general manager who could pass for a college underclassmen, has nine years of experience in the Rams ecosystem and is hailed as a scouting wizard. For Jacksonville to run the type of operation that Khan wants — draft, develop, reward — he’ll have to knock both the draft and free agency out of the park. That’s something ex-GM Trent Baalke didn’t do often or well enough to keep his job.
Gladstone’s attendance at the combine came a day after he was introduced to fans at Monday’s press conference. He was hired last week and has been on the move, including a quick turn at the combine. It’s his first trip there since 2019 when he was with the Rams. Free agency begins in less than a month and Gladstone said the priority will be maximizing Jacksonville along both sides of the line. The Jaguars had arguably the league’s worst defense last year and the offensive line is average at best with some holes to fill. Baalke’s final free agency class was, at its very best, well below average. That included signings like receiver Gabe Davis, safety Darnell Savage, cornerback Ronald Darby and defensive lineman Arik Armstead.
The highlight of those four well-paid players was Armstead winning Walter Payton Man of the Year, an ultra-prestigious award, but one that is determined by off-field charitable work. On the field, Armstead played out of position and was largely a nonfactor on a bad defense. Jacksonville has to do far better this year in free agency.
“Where it stands right now, I think we’ll prioritize positions that really are across the front both offensively and defensively and those that put points on the board,” he said. “That’s where my mind goes when you ask a question like that. Beyond it, we’ll continue to round out.”
Coen largely became a head coaching candidate based on his work with Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield. Coen cited where Mayfield’s career was at in 2022 when he left the Rams and joined Tampa Bay as a reclamation project. Mayfield clicked with Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dave Canales and had a career rebirth. Canales left for the Panthers head coaching job and Tampa Bay hired Coen. Mayfield again thrived with Coen and had the best season of his career.
But Mayfield excelled in his eighth season in the NFL and his fourth team. Jacksonville desperately needs Coen to tap Lawrence’s potential now.
“The development of Baker will be different than Trevor,” Coen said. “It just will be because of the different type of player, but you see a lot of the same intangibles in terms of the work ethic, the ‘want to;’ he wants to be great, he wants to be coached hard, and the process, like how do we get him on a schedule, a process every single day that he can follow to get him to the point that he feels like he’s playing at a higher level?”
Lawrence’s road through his first four seasons has been a struggle. As a rookie under dysfunctional coach Urban Meyer, Lawrence was erratic at best. He took a step forward in the second half of the 2022 season under Doug Pederson and had a solid start in 2023. But ever since that 8-3 start in 2023, Lawrence and the Jaguars have been bad. Coen will be tasked with helping Lawrence reach some stable ground as a consistent NFL quarterback.
Lawrence will be working with his fourth head coach in five seasons (Meyer, interim head coach Darrell Bevel, Pederson and Coen).
“He hasn’t had the stability. That is something that, similar to Baker, you guys asked about in terms of that stability,” Coen said. “It’s important, but he’s going to learn so much from his different experiences, right? For good and for bad. He can take those experiences to really dive into this new process. But I think what’s critical is how do we get him to that standard and that structure and that schedule throughout his process once he gets here?”
Lawrence is at an inflection point in his career. The Jaguars gave him a $275 million contract extension last offseason, a contract that has yet to start. Jacksonville needs him to take that next step in the process if it has any hope of contending in the AFC South.
