JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Hindsight is always 20/20, especially after a loss in the NFL.
With that said, it didn't take the benefit of hindsight to dive into one of Liam Coen's biggest decisions in the Jaguars' 34-31 loss to the Houston Texans in Week 6. Coen and the Jaguars had a chance to put themselves in a position to beat the Texans and improve to 5-1, but that was before this critical decision.
Coen's Decision
Coen has bgeen an aggressive coach when it comes to fourth-down decisions since he was hired, and it has helped the Jaguars more than a few times. He was even aggressive against the Texans in the first-half, passing up a potential field goal for a fourth-down attempt that would end in an incompletion.
That is what made his decision to kick a 60-yard field goal with 1:55 left a difficult one to understand in the moment. The Jaguars were down by three and had the ball at the Texans' 42-yard line, facing a 4th-and-4 with the game on the line. Going for it would have meant risking the chance of giving the Texans the ball back near midfield, but it also would have given the Jaguars their only real chance to win the game considering the performance C.J. Stroud had.
The math, though, was clear. There were four potential scenarios with the decision, and only one of them would have led to a likely Jaguars win; kick it and make it, and the Texans get the ball back with three timeouts and nearly two minutes to kick a field goal and likely lose, which is what happened; kick it and miss it, and lose; go for it and do not get it, and likely lose; go for it and get the first down, which would have likely led to, at worst, overtime.
For the Jaguars to win this game, they needed to be aggressive one more time instead of trusting their kicker. But they didn't, and the Texans drove down the field and won the game as a result.
"Look, every decision like that, it's a coach's decision. I ended up doing that and there's always hindsight. And you look, alright, if we don't get it, we're going to need a stop either way," Coen said on Monday. "If we go down and you're down by six points, now we have got to go score a touchdown. I felt like we had just got the turnover, maybe we put a little pressure on them on the other side of the ball."
Little, of course, made the 60-yard field goal. The Texans then drove into field goal range in six plays, finishing the drive with a 49-yard field goal as time expired to give themselves the win -- a win that the Jaguars could have had with a different decision and, of course, the proper execution.
But having Little's big leg plays a factor. The Jaguars knew he could make the field goal, and that is exactly what he ended up doing.
"But he gives you so much confidence to be able to be in those moments regardless of end of game, end of half, you feel like he got a shot and that's why we were able to be aggressive at the end of the half was to try to put us in a position to get points and he's such a weapon," Coen said. "Sometimes it makes some of these decisions challenging when you have a guy that's so dynamic that he can make kicks from so many different spots on the field, but very proud of Cam in the last few weeks that he's had, just continues to give us a chance to win.”
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