HEAD COACH LIAM COEN
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 2026
(On how practice has been this week) “Same as it’s been for the last 10 weeks or so,
whatever it is. It’s been good. Guys have been on it. Good concentration, details in practice
and walk through good stuff to coach off of. Today we’ll finish up with a little fast Friday,
tomorrow walkthrough.”
(On if it is ‘just another week’ for the guys) “100 percent, yeah, I do. I think that they
understand what’s at stake without having to go and say ‘Oh, this could be our last practice,
this could be our last walkthrough.’ You go through those comments or thought processes,
just not where we’re at, so just keep going through the week and that’s what it’s kind of
been, same as.”
(On how to balance the ‘finality’ of playoff games with the 1-0 mentality) “Yeah, I think that’s
just a result that will come on Sunday that we’ll have to figure out what it is. I mean, you
don’t put yourself there at all. I have not put myself there at all personally. You just keep
trying to do what you’ve been doing to the best of your ability and then let the results be
what they may and go play your asses off on Sunday for 60 minutes and see what the heck
happens. So, it’s just the way that this game works. The way that you have to stay so
singularly focused on your job, your execution, your responsibilities, your details, the game
plan, knowing your opponent to the best of your ability and then go play because you let
anything else get into your mind, it just starts to cloud it and you start to think about things
that really don’t matter.”
(On what the wristband allows him to do when calling plays with QB Trevor Lawrence)
“Reminders on the play or different things to think about for that specific play or situation
more so based like, ‘Alright, hey, you got four downs here, be smart.’ Or whatever it is, it just
kind of allows you to throw a couple pointers into him. I haven’t really had to give him too
much to be honest with you outside of the preparation that we have and go through the
process or if something’s coming in that’s not in the game plan, that’s just being called. You
may want to give him a little heads up as to what you’re thinking quickly if you can, if you
have time. But for the most part, that work is all done previous to. When you go through the
game plan, when he and I and Grant [Offensive Coordinator Grant Udinski] and Spence
[QBs Coach Spencer Whipple] go through the call sheet tomorrow afternoon and go
through it, what we’re thinking, what are going to be our first third-down calls, short
yardage, red zone. When we get to this area of the field, what are we thinking? You try to
stick to those thought processes because that’s what he’s now anticipating, unless things
completely have changed based on how they play and what they’re doing in the game. And
so, you try to keep it as rhythmic as possible. But the wristband at times does allow you to
give a couple more coaching points.”
(On how long the Saturday play calling meeting is) “They will start a call sheet meeting
Saturday morning. They’ll probably go for about an hour. And then, we go again before mass
and chapel usually starts for about another hour or so where we’re just going through
priority calls. Here’s the top calls in both the play actions, the keepers, quick game
screens, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And then get into some situational thought process
for each third down window. Alright, hey, what’s the first call? What’s your order of these
third downs? Knowing that it could get tweaked a little bit in game based on what you’re
getting, but you try to go through a little bit of a process of how you’re going to almost call it
or what he can anticipate to hear in some of those situations so that when Sunday comes,
it’s not just like, ‘Well, I thought you said we were calling that play fourth,’ and now you’re
going to use it third. So, it’s just more so to get on the same page.”
(On his experience with Coach Tom Moore) “Yeah, so much respect for [Former
Buccaneers Senior Offensive Assistant] Tom Moore. I mean, to be doing it and do it as long
as he’s been. A pioneer in offensive football, the levels concepts in the pass game. So
much that I learned from him, not even just last year. If you go back and watch their tape
from all those years in Indy, everybody in the NFL now is running the levels concepts
because of what they were doing and how much freedom he gave the quarterback at the
line of scrimmage. Sometimes he was telling me they’d have three, four calls. It was, like,
run to run to pass and Peyton [Colts QB Peyton Manning] was getting to those things based
on the looks that he was being presented and Tom had a great presentation to our players
and coaches that he would do every year and it was just talking about the seven deadly sins
of coaching and playing. I can’t rattle them all off the top of my head right now, but it was
just about, hey, keep the main thing the main thing and teaching young players and young
coaches how to kind of survive in this league. And I think that was really cool knowledge
coming from him. Got a lot of respect and appreciate what he’s done for our game.”
(On if he thinks he could coach at 87) “Heck no. I don’t know, if I’m fortunate enough to,
right? I mean, Tom Moore, all he’s wanted to do, why he’s done it this long is because he
wants to help people. Like that’s it. There’s no ego involved. There’s no I’m doing this for my
accolades or for me or for any of those things. It’s truly because he wants to teach and
help. [Buccaneers RB] Bucky Irving was in his office every single day at 5:30 in the morning
hanging out with Tom. I mean, if you’re not helping mentor somebody and get somebody
through their rookie year and be a part of success, I don’t know what it is. And so that’s
what Tom Moore is. That’s what he’s about. And that’s what you hope to take from him; guys
like him that are really trying to help our game.”
(On the part that LB Foye Oluokun has played in the growth of the defense) “Yeah, critical.
The communication, his understanding of the game plan. He takes the defense through a
bunch of calls before we get to Sunday. They do multiple film session meetings that Foye’s
taking the guys through calls versus looks when they’re watching tape and they start to
anticipate some of those calls and what they can do within those roles and within those
calls. And then the energy that he plays with on Sunday and you have so many of the clips
that we show our guys of him laughing, cackling on the field, just like hooting and hollering,
having a blast. That’s infectious, and the way that he continues to lead our group. I mean,
the guy carries around tape in his pocket, literally has a roll of tape in his pocket at all
times, he just carries it around here and he’ll start taping something up before we go out to
practice and he’s ready to go. So, a bit of a throwback that way in the way that he prepares,
the way that he plays on Sundays. It’s really fun to watch him play football.”
(On when TE Brenton Strange turned a corner to becoming fully healthy) “I mean, I think
obviously getting going against Arizona was nice. Like that first drive where he caught the
big one that kind of got him in the game early and that previous week of practice, I think
that’s maybe what he was referring to. Like he definitely wasn’t back yet. Like, he was back,
but he wasn’t feeling himself. And it took an extra week to get him really back to feeling
better and there was some frustration on his part during the course of that week of
practice. And I think he just needed to get out there and get some of those cobwebs kind of
brushed off, get a little bit of the anxiety out and just go play because that’s the type—he is
a hundred miles an hour every play, that’s the thing about Brenton. A lot of guys play this
game probably at about 85 to 90 percent max velocity, I would think. I don’t know if you’re
quite at 100 every single play for the entire season. That would be probably really difficult to
do. He’s at 100 percent every single snap, every single play for the entire season. So, I think
for him, there was frustration because he didn’t feel like he could do that. And to see,
though, how he’s worked through it, to see the way that he’s continued to impact and affect
our offense in both the run and the pass. And he’s got leadership qualities. He does. He’s
not the most vocal all the time, but he’s tough and I think a lot of players respect tough.
They see it. They know it when they see it. You don’t have to say much to be tough and
that’s something that he’s continued to bring to our offense.”
(On the importance of CB Greg Newsome II) “He’s got a lot of confidence. He’s got a lot of
confidence. He’s seen a lot of football. He’s smart. He’s intentional with the way that he
practices, the way that he tries to do things. There’s been a lot of guys playing in the back
end for us this year and to see that room specifically settle in, get a little bit of that rotation
that we’ve had with obviously Greg and Buster [CB Montaric Brown] and Jarrian [CB Jarrian
Jones] and then when Jourdan [CB Jourdan Lewis] was still playing healthy, him as well and
have no ego about it. Like everybody kind of points to DBs and wideouts as being your, I
guess you call it divas. That’s not on our team, but I do feel like that’s a general consensus.
Not this group. This group, they’ve been extremely selfless with the way that they’ve gone
about their business and the way that other guys have success. They’re excited for it, they
appreciate each other. They’ve worked their asses off as a group to continue to get better
and I think that’s showing up on Sunday and Greg’s a big part of that.”
(On if it will be easier to ‘guard’ his aggressiveness since points are at a ‘premium’ in the
playoffs) “Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, you’re trying to win this game and so you can’t think
about the next one. You can’t think about what if or what could happen if we don’t do. I
think it’s just, look, the flow of the game always kind of dictates what you’re going to do
from a decision-making process. You have a philosophy. You have something that you
believe in, but the flow of the game is going to have to determine how aggressive we are in
some of those moments. And is it a high scoring game? Do we need every possession we
can get? Is it one of those games that look, we’re stopping each other when points are hard
to come by? This is what we may need to be more of a kick mindset here. So, I don’t have
any idea where we rank in terms of aggressiveness or anything like that for fourth downs, I
know we’ve tried to be aggressive. But that’s going to be a game time decision with that. We
talk about it in our game management meeting tomorrow a little bit. John [Senior Director
of Football Strategy and Game Management] and Shane [Pass Game Coordinator Shane
Waldron] and I will talk through, okay, coin toss, we talk about the weather. We talk about
the stadium, kicking, their kicker versus our kicker. And then obviously the fourth downs.
We talk about some of those, we talk about two-point conversion situations, overtime
rules, now that we’re in the playoffs, got communicated to our players and what our
thought process will be regarding overtime and whether we’re going to kick or receive. So,
we’ve had a lot of these conversations and ultimately it comes down to trusting your gut
and trusting the feel from in game and seeing what’s happening.”
(On the importance of keeping players engaged in reference to OL Walker Little) “Yeah,
look, we wouldn’t be in the position we were at without Walker Little. Like without a lot of
these guys that have obviously helped us get to where we are. And he’s been able to play
multiple positions for us, be flexible with kind of that rotation, be able to step in, play right
guard for us, play it at a pretty good click for us for a few games, never having really played
it before. And then have to potentially slide back over to left at times. That’s just the way it
goes. And I think that that’s something that you appreciate in an offensive lineman. You
appreciate the selflessness, you appreciate the team first mentality typically of offensive
linemen because their number one job is to protect: to protect the back, to protect the
quarterback and to protect this team and this organization. So, when you have a selfless
group that has a team first mentality like Walker does and like the rest of that group does, it
typically helps you succeed.”
(On how the interior defensive line has embraced the challenge of the Bills number one
rush offense) “Look, I think those guys understand the task at hand. We showed them good
enough clips in my team meeting and the defensive meetings of the run game and what
that can do both when they as an offensive line get going and the techniques and
fundamentals in which they try to use and things that we need to do to combat that. And
also, when we’ve got our opportunities to tackle the ball carriers, whether it’s the backs or
the quarterback, what that needs to look like and the way in which we need to play to get
after those guys to do those things. And so, I think we’re ready for the task at hand, whether
we make every single tackle on Sunday, who knows? That’s just the game. So it’s more
about the relentless effort. The relentless effort, the relentless strain, whoop blocks,
continue to play with that mindset and mentality upfront and good things will happen.”
