JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Jaguars coach Liam Coen flashed a wide smile as Trevor Lawrence jogged off the sideline after throwing a touchdown in the first quarter of the Aug. 17 preseason game against the New Orleans Saints.
The first-team offense was humming --118 yards and 3-for-3 on third down on two drives -- and Lawrence was getting the ball out quickly while spreading it around. The TD pass to Parker Washington was his final play of the night: He took a three-step drop, a quick look to the left, coming back to his right and delivering the ball to Washington's face mask.
Washington caught it, spun to his right, split two defenders and dove into the end zone. It was Lawrence's eighth completion in 10 attempts and five players had receptions.
It was just what Coen wanted to see after working with Lawrence on fundamentals this offseason.
Coen had a similar smile on his face three weeks earlier after the team's scrimmage at EverBank Field. It was the first time rookie WR/CB Travis Hunter had lined up to play on both sides of the ball in a single practice, and Coen was excited to see how seamlessly it worked.
Those two brief moments from the hundreds of hours of training camp were signs that Coen's plan for the Jaguars is coming together.
When Coen was hired to replace Doug Pederson in January, the task before him was already tough: Fix the franchise quarterback who has yet to play a full season of consistent football and field a winning team.
Three months later, one more thing was added to his plate: Figure out a way to successfully have Hunter play a high volume of snaps on offense and defense regularly, something that hasn't been done in the NFL in more than 40 years.
All while serving as a head coach for the first time at any level.
General manager James Gladstone knows that's a tough ask, but said Coen has embraced it.
"When there's an opportunity to be bold, he [doesn't] flinch," Gladstone said.
Jaguars management is buoyed by what it has seen so far. Lawrence's footwork -- one of Coen's biggest changes -- has improved and he has progressed in his understanding of the offense. The team, after significant research, came up with a plan for preparing Hunter to go both ways in camp and throughout the season. There's a sturdy belief in the building that Coen is indeed bringing it all together.
"When we hired him, we felt like he was the right guy, and nothing has changed," said Tony Boselli, the team's executive vice president of football operations. "We had confidence he was the right leader ... and those convictions are as strong as ever today."
Fixing the franchise QB
The first thing Coen did was reteach Lawrence how to dance.
Timing, body control, eye discipline and (most importantly) footwork must all sync up -- or it's not the foxtrot, rumba or tango. It's just flailing around on the dance floor, and Lawrence was, at times in his previous four seasons, flailing. Especially after taking the snap.
"The drop of a quarterback is very similar to a dance, and so each song, right, has a different rhythm," Coen said. "Each play has a different rhythm. Each system has different rhythms."
Fixing Lawrence's footwork was the main focus.
A quarterbacks' feet are tied in with their reads, progressions and release, but also accuracy, said a former NFL offensive coordinator and head coach who now consults with teams on quarterbacks.
Feet, body and shoulders in the correct alignment leads to on-target throws, and Lawrence's feet were too often not in the right position.
"The footwork, that repetitive delivery, the guys who consistently make the plays have the base footwork, delivery, motion and it's reliable," said the former coach, who requested anonymity.
"... When [Lawrence has] had trouble, it's when it's a combo of not making quick decisions and then he tries to deliver the ball late with inconsistent footwork. But [there's] so much talent there he's been able to make it work at times.''
Lawrence was one of the NFL's least accurate passers last season.
Per NFL Next Gen Stats, his completion percentage over expectation (CPOE), which measures a QB's accuracy vs. the expected completion percentage on a given pass, ranked 33rd out of 36 qualifying quarterbacks. His percentage of off-target throws was 16.9%, which ranked 25th among qualifying QBs and was the second-worst mark of his career, trailing only his rookie season.
When Coen was the offensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Baker Mayfield ranked 10th in CPOE and his off-target percentage was fourth best in the league in 2024. Both numbers were the best of his seven-year career.
One of the first changes Coen made with Lawrence was having him put his left foot ahead of his right when lining up in shotgun. Sounds simple, but Lawrence had always had his right foot ahead of his left, so it felt awkward for a while.
That began in the spring, when Lawrence was still recovering from offseason surgery on his left non-throwing shoulder. He was able to practice it at home, setting aside some time to drill it over and over. It was tedious at times, but Lawrence needed to build muscle memory to erase what he had always done.
"You might turn on the TV and see a bunch of people taking three-step drops or five-step drops, but not all those are created equal," offensive coordinator Grant Udinski said. "He mentioned he's switching his feet. So, it's actually learning: 'What do those steps look like? Where am I angled? Where are my shoulders?'
"... And it takes a lot of time and effort and commitment to doing it because when you're out there and playing quarterback ... hopefully you are not thinking about what foot is up or how many steps am I taking on this drop."
Some of the footwork and other fundamental changes Coen has made with Lawrence are tied into his offense. The footwork is paired with certain concepts, routes and depth of the drop, for example, which is connected to the timing.
Coen's offense operates best when the quarterback is getting rid of the ball quickly. Mayfield ran the offense at a high level in 2024, setting career highs in completion percentage (71.4%), passing yards (4,500) and passing TDs (41), and his time to throw was the lowest of his career (2.70 seconds).
Lawrence has yet to play consistently over the course of a full season in his four-year career, and he's never thrown more than 25 touchdown passes in a season (2022). So he embraced the tweaks to his mechanics, which he agreed needed work -- including something he had never been taught until this spring.
"Using my eyes as a weapon and not giving the defense a tip on anything of where I'm going with the ball," Lawrence said. "... It's been something that a lot of quarterbacks do. It's something that I've never really been taught necessarily, but to hear ... the emphasis on certain plays to use your eyes, especially to open windows, is something where it makes sense.
"But it's just if you're not told to do it, sometimes you don't think about it."
He's slowly getting there.
"It's starting to feel a lot more comfortable and natural," Lawrence said. "I'm not having to say, 'OK, what's my footwork on this play?' I feel comfortable with it. Some of the mechanical stuff that you've done for years -- just the way you hitch, the way you transfer weight and some of that stuff -- takes a little longer to train out."
It's asking a lot for a quarterback to change how his body operates while learning a new offense and adjusting to a third head coach and fourth offensive coordinator in five years, but Coen is pleased with the progress Lawrence has made.
"I'm not really judging does he make every single throw right now," Coen said. "Is every single ball perfectly accurate right now? Is he operating the offense at a high level? Yes, he is right now."
Ryan Clark says if the Jaguars don't play Travis Hunter on both sides of the ball, it was a mistake to draft him.
Managing Hunter's play
Everything that Hunter, the No. 2 pick in April's draft, has done since he hit the field for rookie minicamp on May 9 has been broken down to the minute by Coen.
When he's working out. When he's eating. Which meetings he's attending. On which side of the ball he's practicing. How many snaps he's getting. All of it has been researched, evaluated and debated.
It's the only way the Jaguars believed they could prepare Hunter, and everyone else, for him to become the league's first regular two-way player since Roy Green in 1981.
"It's super organized," Hunter said. "Me and Coach [Coen] go over it pretty much every week, and they send me a picture, and I get a piece of paper to keep in my locker so I know exactly where I have to be and when I need to be there."
Coming up with a schedule began even before the Jaguars knew for sure they would end up with Hunter. When they began exploring the possibility of trading with the Cleveland Browns to move up three spots to take the former Colorado star, Gladstone and Coen consulted with multiple people inside the organization.
They involved all areas: strength and conditioning, athletic training, equipment, sports science, nutrition and assistant coaches at receiver and defensive back. The Jaguars also spoke with people at Colorado to find out how they managed Hunter's workload each week.
What is Hunter's conditioning like? Answer: He can run all day and never tire.
How much rest did he require during the week? He did recovery Sunday through Tuesday and returned to practice Wednesday.
How did he flip-flop sides in practice and meetings? He practiced on both sides of the ball Wednesday through Friday and attended meetings on both sides of the ball throughout the week.
Did he get overwhelmed with the mental workload? Nope.
The Jaguars took all that information, produced a tentative plan and put it in place on draft night after the trade with the Browns.
The most important part of that plan, Coen said, was to remain flexible and adjust as needed -- to which they did after OTAs and mandatory minicamp.
The Jaguars practiced him on one side of the ball only -- beginning with offense because it would be more complex to learn -- until the final day of mandatory minicamp, when Hunter took snaps on both sides.
"We saw there was a span where maybe he practiced on offense. Let's call it a Thursday because we didn't do anything on the Fridays," Coen said. "And then he had Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday, he was on defense. That's four days without doing anything on offense. Well, we learned that it was too long. That's too long to kind of go without doing anything on maybe the other side of the ball, so we learned something there."
Once training camp began, Hunter practiced on one side of the ball through the first seven practices. When the Jaguars were in special teams periods he would work off to the side with assistant coaches from the opposite side of the ball to get individual training.
Hunter has handled the workload with no problems, receivers coach Edgar Bennett said.
"He is able to show what he's capable of doing, and I think playing both spots on offense and defense, this kid continues to just go out and work his butt off and when he gets his opportunity, he's going to make the most of it," Bennett said.
And he will get that opportunity. Though there seem to be doubters outside of Jacksonville -- with the most notable being Los Angeles Rams receiver Davante Adams on "The Pivot" podcast -- Hunter is playing on both sides of the ball every week.
The Jaguars didn't trade four draft picks -- including a 2026 first-rounder -- to move up three spots to select Hunter to play one position. They wanted him to play both, to be, as Gladstone said the day after they drafted Hunter, someone who could "alter the trajectory of the sport."
The expectation is that matchups will partly determine whether he starts a game on both sides. If the Jaguars start in 11 personnel on offense (one running back, one tight end, three receivers) Hunter will likely be on the field. If they're in 12 personnel (one back, two tight ends, two receivers), then maybe not. Tyson Campbell and Jourdan Lewis are likely starters at cornerback in the Jaguars' base defense. If they go with five defensive backs, Hunter will line up outside and Lewis moves to nickel.
How many snaps Hunter will play each week is a fluid situation as well. He averaged 113.9 snaps at Colorado in 2024, but that might be asking too much in the NFL. Last season, Cincinnati receiver Ja'Marr Chase averaged 62 snaps and Denver Broncos cornerback Patrick Surtain II averaged 61.1. Chase played 93% of the Bengals' offensive snaps and Surtain 90% of the Broncos' defensive snaps.
The Jaguars are mum on how many snaps they expect Hunter to play each week, and how they would break up, but they hinted that also will depend on matchups. In Week 2, for example, the Jaguars play in Cincinnati. That might be a game in which they need Hunter more on defense than offense.
And there's also the emergence of Washington, a third-year receiver. Coen wants to get him on the field, but do some of his snaps take away from Hunter or Dyami Brown? Injuries also will play a role. If Brian Thomas Jr., for example, misses a game because of an injury, then it's likely Hunter will play more snaps offensively, and how will that impact his defensive snaps?
But if there is one person who could play 100% of the snaps on both sides of the ball, Lewis is convinced it is Hunter. He's been impressed with Hunter's conditioning, how quickly he's picked up the offense and defense and his on-field persona.
"His energy is different," Lewis said. "And the way he goes about his business is different. All he wants to do is play football. It takes a special individual mentally to go out there and want to do both things. It's going to be tough, especially being his first time in the NFL, but I think he has it.
"He has it to do it."
After missing time with an upper-body injury in recent weeks, Hunter is expected to play vs. the Carolina Panthers in Week 1. And Coen views Hunter's camp as a success.
"From a scheduling standpoint, I do think that it's been a success. He still wants more, which is good, but he's got to also hone in on the details and get back to that after being away for 10 days. But I do believe it was a success."