The two questions hovering over Travis Hunter heading into his second season is how he’s recovering from knee surgery and how the Jaguars plan to use him on both sides of the ball.
Hunter tore his LCL in the seventh game of the season and head coach Liam Coen said in an interview with Pete Prisco of CBS Sports that Hunter “looks great right now” while working out at the team’s facility. Coen also touched on the team’s plans for deploying the two-way player in the future.
Hunter played 324 snaps at wide receiver and 162 snaps at cornerback during his rookie season. The injury raised questions about whether the strain of playing on both sides would be too much stress for the 2025 first-rounder and Coen said the team is not making any concrete plans at the moment.
“We’re gonna continue to evaluate. What does his schedule look like? Where do we need him more on this day or as a team. We’ll continue to be fluid with that,” Coen said.
General Manager James Gladstone said last month that the current roster makeup might create a bigger need for Hunter at cornerback, but it will be some time before the full plan for Hunter becomes clear in 2026.
Panthers owner David Tepper has previously been mum about why he threw a drink at a fan in Jacksonville two years ago. Now he has offered an explanation.
Tepper told Pat McAfee Jaguars fans had been trash-talking him the entire game and he was ignoring it, despite how close they were getting to his box.
“In Jacksonville, the way it’s set up, they can get on a chair and lean into your box,” Tepper said.
So what set Tepper over the edge? He says it was the way the Jaguars were talking not about him, but about a Panthers player who had suffered a significant head injury.
“I was walking away, our player — Marquis Haynes — got knocked out on the field. The people had been harassing us the whole game, harassing, harassing, harassing. I’m just like, walk away, walk away, walk away. The guy said, ‘Get your frickin’ player off the field.’ I couldn’t take it anymore,” Tepper said.
The NFL fined Tepper $300,000 for throwing the drink.
The Coach of the Year award had more deserving candidates than perhaps any other award announced Thursday night at NFL Honors.
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel won it for the second time in his career, with 19 of 50 first-place votes and 302 total points. He beat out Jacksonville’s Liam Coen (239 points, 16 first-place votes), Seattle’s Mike Macdonald (191, eight), Chicago’s Ben Johnson (145, one) and San Francisco’s Kyle Shanahan (140, six). Coen and Johnson, like Vrabel, directed big turnarounds; Macdonald led the Seahawks to the No. 1 seed in the NFC; and Shanahan’s team overcame a slew of injuries to come within a game of the No. 1 seed, losing to the Seahawks in Week 18.
He joins Chuck Knox (Rams, Bills, Seahawks), Bill Parcells (Giants, Patriots), Bruce Arians (Colts, Cardinals), Dan Reeves (Giants, Falcons), Don Shula (Colts, Dolphins) and George Allen (Rams, Washington) as coaches who have won the award with multiple franchises.
The Patriots named Vrabel their head coach before the 2025 season after the team went 4-13 in Jerod Mayo’s only season. New England was 13-4 this season and won the AFC East in Vrabel’s first season.
Vrabel also won the award in 2021 when he coached the Titans.
Bill Belichick won the award in 2010.
The awards announced at NFL Honors are only for results of the regular season, with voting conducted after Week 18.
The Jaguars set linebacker Devin Lloyd up for a contract year by declining his fifth-year option ahead of the 2025 season and Lloyd made the most of the chance to show his value to the league.
Lloyd was named a second-team All-Pro after recording 81 tackles, five interceptions, 1.5 sacks and a fumble recovery for the AFC South champions. With a projected franchise tag number of over $28 million for linebackers, Lloyd is likely to re-sign with the Jags or hit free agency as one of the top off-ball linebackers in March.
While speaking with NFL.com from the Pro Bowl this week, Lloyd said he has had “no talks” with the Jaguars yet and shared his thoughts about what he’d like to see happen come the offseason.
“I want to be where God wants me to be,” Lloyd said. “For me, being back in Jacksonville, my mom lives out there. You know, obviously, my lady is out there. You know, there are a lot of pros to being out there. And so, for me, it’s just about being in the right spot. Ultimately, that’s the No. 1 most important thing, being in the right spot.”
Lloyd’s play in Anthony Campanile’s defense this season is likely to create interest in his return to the Jaguars but the numbers will have to fit in order for him to pass on the chance to see what he could make on the open market.
The Jaguars added a pair of coaches to Liam Coen’s staff on Wednesday.
They announced the hiring of defensive pass game coordinator Mathieu Araujo and offensive run game coordinator Brian Picucci. The moves come a day after the team announced that offensive coordinator Grant Udinski and defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile will be back for the 2026 season.
Araujo spent the last four seasons with the Dolphins and was the team’s cornerbacks coach for the last two years. He interviewed for the Jets defensive coordinator job, but they wound up hiring Araujo’s Miami colleague Brian Duker for the role.
Picucci was the offensive line coach for the Buccaneers in 2025 and their assistant line coach in 2024. Coen was the offensive coordinator in Tampa in 2024 and also worked with Coen at Kentucky in 2023.
