The first real head coaching domino fell over the holiday weekend as the Chicago Bears hired Ben Johnson to take over and hopefully develop Caleb Williams. It was one of the worst-kept secrets of the offseason, as it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the Bears would end up with Johnson, especially after all of the open flirting that happened basically the entire year.
Another open secret in his hiring cycle is that Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Liam Coen is widely viewed as a 1B option to Johnson. His stock has skyrocketed since the beginning of the season after he turned the Bucs into one of the best offenses in the league and fixed the NFL’s worst rushing attack.
He’s viewed as a Ben Johnson adjacent type of candidate who can come in and fix a team’s young quarterback. It’s an insanely attractive and valuable quality, and it’s one that could lead Coen to moving north to Jacksonville in the next few days.
Liam Coen could get hired away by the Jaguars very soon
Jaguars play-by-play announcer Frank Fangie reportedly has the inside track on what the team is doing, and it seems to be exactly what we all thought would happen. With Ben Johnson off the board and in Chicago, Sauron’s eye up in Duval is now firmly focused on hiring Coen away from the Bucs.
“What I hear is they really like Liam Coen, like not like him, but really like him,” Frangie said, via JoeBucsFan. “That he did really well in his interview a couple of nights ago. It was an 8:30 p.m. interview. And if it’s not Ben Johnson, it’s Liam Coen.”
There’s nothing super revelatory about that as we’ve known all along that Coen was the top guy for the Jaguars job. Pieces are finally moving, though, which means we’re probably going to see some action one way or another in the coming days.
Johnson was arguably the linchpin to this head coachin hiring cycle, and now that the Bears have landed him the rest of the vacancies are likely to be filled in short order. Coen isn’t the only candidate floating around but he’s arguably the best one available and if the Jaguars have their sights set on him then it’s going to be tough to see him returning to Tampa Bay.
That’s not ot of the quesiton, though.
Remember last year it seemed like Ben Johnson was such a lock to become the Washington Commander’s head coach that top officials were flying to meet him. He reneged on everything while they were mid-flight, so it’s not impossible to see Coen reverse course here.
It’s also worth mentioning that all of the noise has been coming from the outside while Coen has held his cards close to his chest. All that we’ve heard is that hte Jaguars love him and are enamored by what he offers, but there hasn’t been anything suggesting the feeling is mutual. That doesn’t mean it Coen isn’t interested in taking the job, but he hasn’t done what Johnson has and openly advertised his desires.
His best course forward, as biased as it sounds, is to run things back with the Bucs for one more year. That opens the door to him not only further boosting his stock like Johnson did but could lead him to succeeding Todd Bowles as head coach in Tampa Bay.
There are only 32 head coaching jobs in the world, though, which makes it hard to pass up an opportunity to land one. A lot can still happen, but all signs seem to be pointing toward Coen leaving and the Bucs living in a world where back-to-back offensive coordinators were one-and-done before becoming head coaches.
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