Jaguars head coach Liam Coen details the coaching assignment that accelerated his coaching growth

Through the first six games of the young NFL season, first-year Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen has to be among the leaders for NFL Coach of the Year honors.

The former Bucs offensive coordinator, who nearly passed on the job less than a year ago before circling back and taking it after a back-and-forth with the Tampa Bay organization, has led the franchise to wins over the Panthers and then managed to find a way to win one-score games against he Texans, 49ers, and Chiefs to improve to 4-2. Both of the team's losses have been by 8-points or less to the Bengals in Week 2 and the Seahawks last week.

Before bursting onto the scene as Mark Stoops' offensive coordinator at Kentucky, helping the team to a 10-3 season in 2021, the former UMass quarterback coached the signal callers or coordinated the offense at a few FCS programs (Brown, Rhode Island, and Maine) and then landed on Sean McVay's staff with the LA Rams as the assistant receivers coach and then assistant quarterbacks coach. After a year in Lexington, he spent a season back with McVay as offensive coordinator in 2022 before returning to Kentucky again in 2023 as offensive coordinator before ultimately returning to the NFL as the Bucs offensive coordinator for a season.

McVay, widely regarded as one of the top minds in football at any level, has as impressive of a coaching tree as anyone with a tree that includes Zac Taylor (Bengals), Matt LaFluer (Packers), Raheem Morris (Falcons) and Kevin O'Connell (Vikings) just to name a few, to go along with Coen.

Perhaps most impressively, is McVay has done all that, and he is yet to turn 40, so his knack for developing coaching talent is as undeniable as it is somewhat mysterious.

Asked recently what the most valuable assignment McVay had given him during their time together in Los Angeles, Coen shared a great lesson for head coaches looking to develop younger coaches on staff, as well as the young coaches looking to blaze their path in the profession.

"The project I was responsible for, for so long was the pass drawings. I did all the pass drawings for three years while I was an assistant position coach there. That opportunity gave me an access to Sean that not maybe every single coach on the staff had, because when you're responsible to draw the passes, you got to hear it from his mouth in terms of the details, the precision, the yardage, the depth, the 'why.' You're getting an inside look at the 'why' behind every pass play, and I think that's probably what maybe helped me the most of anything that I was able to do there, was the little finite details that go into just one play, one pass play."

"We all run smash, right? Everybody runs curl-flat. Everybody runs these plays, but the detail in which I learned it from him, because of my access to working with him. I wasn't saying anything really. I mean, I'm just sitting there, he's teaching, he's coaching, he's up on the whiteboard, he's showing me clips and film examples so that I can draw those plays, but also then pull clips of those plays to show the coaches and players."

"So I always think it was more so that overall opportunity that I had. Now, it's not a fun job always. You're down on the clock rushing into meetings at 9:00am with pass drawings you just finihsed up, and it's a process. But I think that, definitely, that whole opportunity to be able to draw [pass plays], so much you talk about to young coaches, like, 'Learn Vizio. Learn how to draw. If you can draw, you may always have a job.' That opportunity was really cool for me."