HEAD COACH LIAM COEN
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2025
(On the work done during the bye week) “Yeah, we did a pretty extensive self-scout in all
three phases. You look at, especially offensively, when you’re on schedule, usually good
things have occurred and when you’re off schedule, it’s tough sledding. We’ve got a couple
different tweaks of how we want to try to get guys the ball and get our best players the ball
in space and how to stay a little bit better ahead of the chains and executing first and
second down a little bit better, so that third downs are a little bit more manageable. And we
also looked at okay pass rush and coverage in terms of limiting explosives but also getting
home a little bit more as well. So you look at all those things and so much of it goes into it,
these guys did a lot of work as a staff from a report and communicating that now to the
players and some of those things that you want to end up getting maybe tweaked, but we’re
not going to go and reinvent the wheel.”
(On the importance of players and coaches resetting during the Bye week) “It’s huge. We
obviously had some guys a little nicked and you go through some physical football games
in the early part of the season and so you need it. Everybody needs a reset and an
opportunity to get away from it. Spend some quality time with family and friends and have
that nice little mental and physical reset to now come into the building with everything
ahead of us.”
(On if meeting with the staff is confirming what he thought or ‘groundbreaking’) “Yeah, not
much is groundbreaking. You have a feeling and what comes out is statistics, you’re looking
at data, but also the big picture of every game’s its own entity, like the stats don’t always
align with the flow of a football game and what actually could have occurred or did occur
within games. So much of it is looking at it from a big picture lens, but then dissecting
individually per side of ball, ‘Okay, where can we improve?’ And then where are the things
that we have done well? What are the things we’ve done well that we can now just change
the presentation to the opponent to be able to continue to have success doing.”
(On if seven games was enough of a sample size to learn how to utilize WR/DB Travis
Hunter) “Yeah, I think so. I think you look at the end of the last game against the Rams with
he and Trevor building on a connection and making some plays towards the end of the
game. Obviously, it was a little out of reach at the time, but you’re still seeing competitive
throws and catches in live action, which is something we’ve needed. So, you definitely look
at how much more can he handle, how much more can we put him in a position to be
successful on both offense and defense and what does that look like? So, it definitely gave
us an opportunity as a staff to look at how we can continue to use him.”
(On how physical practice will be this week) “We’ll tweak our practice a little where we’ll go
pads on Wednesday this week just because there was no game this past Sunday. So, we’ll
go pads on Wednesday, be able to get these guys going a little bit earlier on in the week and
then just go spiders on Thursday, helmets on Friday. Today will be a helmets practice, about
an hour on the grass, just get these guys back up and running, hearing the calls again,
fundamentals, a lot of individual work. We’ll do alignment assignment and just get them
buzzing a little bit.”
(On if his self-scouting process is general or more based on individual players) “It’s more as
a whole, but then it does get broken down to okay, run, pass, protection. And so, you end up
watching it a little bit more detailed that way as a staff where you’re saying, ‘Okay, run
game, these are stats by run concept, these are the stats or what show on the tape
specifically versus stats.’ What are we best at? What is our runner best at? What is our O-
line best at? What is our receivers best at running? And what is the quarterback ultimately
most comfortable doing? So, you get that information when you break it by, alright, ‘What is
our run data and stats on mid zone, wide zone, draws, transportations,’ you get a little bit
more detail in the weeds of what those things that our players do best when you watch it
that way.”
(On if QB Trevor Lawrence needs to see something multiple times in a game to gain
familiarity) “I think that’s fair. Anytime you may see something that fits in a game plan that
you can take advantage of on the defense, but maybe it’s like a one-time play call or you
want to get something off versus a specific look and you may be hunting up that look all
game and not see it till a different time where you don’t have that play call. So, we’re trying
to get away from some of the game plan specific plays or looks and ‘Hey man, let’s try to go
operate and execute our core principles, foundations, concepts’ because the more times
you rep something, the better off you are at any position, especially though the quarterback
position because it’s not just, okay, we want to throw it to number one because we want to
manipulate the defense some way. Well, what if that’s not open and you dialed that up for a
different look and you just didn’t get the right look you wanted, well now what’s the other
reads? Where does the check down go? And if you start creating new every week, I don’t
think that’s usually a good thing for the quarterback.”
(On his optimism for WR Brian Thomas Jr.) “Yeah, I am very optimistic. We have no plans on
moving Brian Thomas Jr at all. [I] Saw something about that over the weekend but I talked to
him for a good amount of time this morning and it was just a good reset for a lot of these
guys to come in fresh, 4-3, with everything ahead of us. Regardless, good, bad or
indifferent, what’s happened in the first seven games, we all have an opportunity to write a
narrative. We own the narrative and so I got a lot of confidence in them. I really do believe
that we can turn the corner and get better in the pass game that way.”
(On why the screen game has not been as effective) “Great question. We just got done
talking screens today. I think it’s a combination of A) when they’re being called and the
timing of them, every screen has a little bit of a different count to it. Is it a one count, two
count, three count screen? You look at screens around the league in terms of when they’re
being called, there’s a trend there. And so, I think it’s a combination. We have athletic
offensive linemen and skill players that can do some things in space. We have got to
improve there, but it’s just like anything you’re trying to improve but not go reinvent the
wheel with them. I think there’s some fundamentals and techniques we can improve.”
(On if the players are committing tells during screens) “No, I think again, it’s probably some
crap luck on some of them. There’s some ones that if it’s second and 20 and you’re running
a screen, I mean there’s probably an idea by the defense if they’re yelling screen, draw,
knowing that you’re trying to get half back or whatever it is. So, we were a very good screen
team last year in Tampa. There was definitely maybe, a little bit more time on task I would
say throughout the week in practice. And so those are things that we’re looking at, okay, if
we want to improve in these areas, we need to put time on task in these areas.”
(On if he has to stick with the run game and if that is difficult) “Yeah, I’ve got to call more
runs in general. When we run the football, we’re a little bit more balanced. Anytime you’re
more balanced you have the defense on their toes, so it’s a matter of like you said, winning
first and second down. When you start drives and you have a run, you get a hold and your
first and 20 now I’m probably not going to run it on first, who knows? But you’re trying to just
look for the balance and when you’re able to run the football, you see around the league all
day yesterday, points being scored and when you can run the ball and be effective running
the football, it’s something that we’ve got to get back to being able to do a little bit more.”
(On the process of calling plays early to get players comfortable) “Absolutely. We looked at
that as well is, the starting fast element and games that we’ve started fast on offense, we’ve
been able to—I don’t want to say control the game, but just have a better feel early, gets our
guys in a rhythm early, gets the quarterback confidence early, so we’re looking at how can
we kind of tweak practice later in the week a little bit to say, ‘Hey, these are the openers
guys on Friday’, maybe get it to them a little bit earlier, whatever it is so that hey, they have a
little bit better idea of what’s going to get called earlier in the game and try to get some of
those things repped on Fridays.”
(On when he was a player if he appreciated a coach owning up to making a mistake and if it
stuck with him) “It did. I thought when I was a player, Don Brown did it a lot as the head
coach at UMass. He did a really nice job of just—man, we ask them to be accountable, the
players, we want accountability from the players. Not to say it’s their fault, it’s just because
then we can fix it and move on. When you just say like, yeah, that was me, I got to fix that.
And so, then you can—there’s an openness now to learn and grow from the mistake and
everybody can learn from that mistake. It’s not, you’re not correcting the player, you’re
correcting the play and ultimately everybody can learn something from that. And then I
thought Sean [Rams Head Coach Sean McVay] did a nice job of it as well when I was in LA
in terms of there’s a standard of execution that we hold and that we have and that
everybody is held to and we’re no different as coaches. And so, I just think that when you
can put a little bit on yourself and, and show, guys, this isn’t good enough by me either. It
continues to hold each other accountable.”
(On what he expects from CB Greg Newsome II this week) “Yeah, I think like Campy [DC
Anthony Campanile] talked about this morning that Greg’s getting more and more
comfortable. He did have some really good matchups last week. He had a couple balls
caught on his way where he is maybe a little deep in in his zone, but man, he’s getting more
and more comfortable. You saw him in man coverage a few times on Davante [Rams WR
Davante Adams] and have some really good reps. So I think you’re starting to see a little bit
more comfort level. He is very engaged in the meetings. The guy sits on the edge of his
chair, he is looking right at you in the eyes, you can tell it’s important to him. So got a lot of
belief that’ll continue to improve.”
(On the importance of the defensive tackles improving coming out of the bye week) “That
we need it. We need to—we’ve looked at, okay, how do we help them on early downs create
more of an edge and get some favorable matchups. We’ve looked at in the known passing
situations where we put in these guys and how can we put them in better positions to be
successful and get more ops on the quarterback. And also, those guys have got to continue
to do it on their own as well. If you’re going to rush with some four, well we’ve got to go win
and so we’re going to make an emphasis of it and continue to coach the heck out of it. But
we did do a little bit of think tanking as a staff over the week on how we can do that and
creating our angles and matchups and also being able to, in base defense, how are we
moving some of these pieces around in order to give us favorable matchups on who we
think we can win on versus the O-line.”
(On if he looks around the league at what other teams are doing during the bye week)
“Yeah, I mean I probably watched every game of around the NFL last week, during the time
off and so you’re trying to look at teams that you’re—I guess you could say quote unquote
similar to in ways, but also taking around a look around the league at other teams that
maybe aren’t using the similar system or the same system and just see what trends are
going around. And it’s not just about that. It’s like, alright, if you’re playing a coverage, cover
three, we’re going to see cover version of cover three almost weekly. Well what concepts
around the league are attacking that coverage or cover four or cover six? It’s not like, alright,
we want to steal what they—it’s alright, what are good concepts that are continuing to
show up around the league that attack people’s core principles and fundamentals and
techniques?”
(On the games he watched) “Yeah, I just did last week. I typically do that throughout the
week, like Monday, Tuesday, try to get a little bit ahead of around the league tape. We do a
great job, the video staff and our offensive assistants and defensive assistants will
somewhat break down the around the league. We use PFF [Pro Football Focus] data to be
able to, ‘Alright, let me just pull up all the explosive passes from this week around the
league’, explosive runs, red zone touchdowns, things like that that help you sort it a little bit
better so you’re not just sitting there watching every play. So thank God for that because I’d
be lost.”
