JACKSONVILLE – They looked back, with an eye on looking forward.
This was the 2025 bye week – and as Head Coach Liam Coen looked to the second "half" of his first season as Jaguars head coach, he called the chance to reassess strengths and weaknesses "huge."
"Everybody needs a reset," Coen said, adding that the Jaguars enter the final 10 games of the season with "everything ahead of us."
Coen on Monday morning spoke to the media a day after the Jaguars' 2025 bye, reemphasizing what he said last week – that at a game over .500 through seven games, the Jaguars need not implement major change. Players that afternoon after a one-hour practice at the Miller Electric Center agreed, with running back Travis Etienne Jr. saying the Jaguars "haven't played our best ball yet."
"We're just shooting ourselves in the foot," Etienne said.
The Jaguars, after a three-game winning streak moved them into a tie for the best record in the AFC, lost back-to-back game before the bye – 20-12 to the Seattle Seahawks in Jacksonville and 35-7 to the Los Angeles Rams at Wembley Stadium in London.
After trailing just 9:10 in the first four games of the season, the Jaguars led just 7:40 in the two losses leading to the bye.
"We have to find that formula of winning and stick with it," Etienne said. "We have to come out faster and we have to control the controllables."