Jaguars' Arik Armstead Weighs In On Liam Coen, 2025 Expectations

Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen's first task in Jacksonville is to win over the locker room. So far, it appears he is making steady progress.

Jaguars defensive lineman and winner of the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award Arik Armstead spoke on the Rich Eisen Show last week to detail his impression of Coen so far, noting that he went to dinner with him ahead of Super Bowl week.

"He has a certain swag to him," Armstead said.

"You know, he's a younger guy, you know, cares a lot about his players, has a lot of energy. And yeah, so me and Josh Hines-Allen had dinner with him, which was cool to be able to meet him and, you know, just talk about the direction that we're headed toward."

Coen is the man in charge of leading the Jaguars back into AFC South contention after a shockingly bad 4-13 season a year ago.

When Armstead joined the Jaguars after two Super Bowl trips with the San Francisco 49ers, he was expecting the Jaguars to contend. Instead, the Jaguars set an NFL record with 10 one-score losses and finished as one of the worst teams in the league.

"When I came to Jacksonville, looked at the roster and looked at, you know, the situation they were in before, you know, being 8-3 and seemed like, you know, things were headed in the right direction," Armstead said.

"You know, I was, I was excited, and I still think, you know, talent-wise and when you look at our roster, we have a team that can compete. And I think we showed that in games, you know, I think seven or eight games were one-score losses. And, you know, just in my experience, you know, losing games like that, in that fashion, and it's got to be something, you know, it's a mentality, it's a, you know, schematic thing, you know, something that we got to figure out."

As Armstead noted, the Jaguars are in a position to surprise people in Coen's first year. After going 4-13 and firing head coach Doug Pederson and general manager Trent Baalke, the Jaguars made Coen the core piece of their reset.

"But one thing that is promising is that we never gave up on each other. You know, I've been on some good teams in the league, and I've been on some bad teams. And one thing I will say about this team is that we stuck together. You know, we still went out there and played hard for one another. And I think we can build upon that," Armstead said.

"I think we have the guys to be successful and the talent that we need to be successful. I've been on some teams where it's kind of like, yeah, we're kind of outmatched. And I never felt like that this season when I went on the field, I looked around the guys I'm surrounded by, I'm like, man, we got some we got some dudes who can really play. And, you know, exciting thing about this opportunity we have is no one's going to be checking for us. No one is going to be expecting anything from us. So we got an opportunity to shock some people."

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