An open week can do wonders for a team — whether it helps players recuperate from injuries or gives coaches more time to engrain fundamentals — but for the Jacksonville Jaguars, the bye looks even more promising when referencing last season.
In the past, open weeks have proved crucial for the Jaguars. Jacksonville (4-2) has found success out of the break and used the time off to set the team on a solid path for the rest of the season.
Much like last year — the first season under coach Liam Coen — the Jaguars head into the open week on a loss, falling to the Houston Texans 34-31 on Sunday in London.
“It just fuels the fire for us,” cornerback Travis Hunter said. “ We got to turn this around and just continue to go out for the second half of the season and continue to dominate.”
Fueling the fire is exactly what it did for last year’s team.
The 2025 Jaguars went into the Week 8 open date sitting at 4-3. But unlike the close loss to the Texans, Jacksonville had a week before it could bounce back from a 35-7 defeat against the Los Angeles Rams.
However, the team came out of the break firing. After dropping three games through the first part of the season, the Jaguars lost just one for the rest of the year until the postseason. The sole loss was to the Texans in Week 10. Jacksonville went into the playoffs on an eight-game win streak.
Safe to say, Coen knows how to use an open week to his advantage, and he already has a focus for the extra time with his team before their next contest.
“Being fundamentally sharp throughout the course of the week … and then situational football, are things that we can absolutely work on throughout this little break,” Coen said Monday. “When we get back, we’ll have a good situational practice on Monday to get these guys back in and rolling.”
Prior to Coen’s arrival in Jacksonville, though, the response to the open weeks looks a little more up and down for the Jaguars.
In 2024, Jacksonville had its open date in Week 12. It lost its first game out of the break 23-20 against the Texans, and fell in two of its next three to the New York Jets and Las Vegas Raiders. Overall, it went 2-4 out of the bye, relatively on par with its 4-13 season.
However, in 2023, the Jaguars’ results after the open week were skewed compared to how it started the season. Jacksonville went into Week 9 on a five-game win streak, but picked up after the bye with a 34-3 loss to the San Francisco 49ers. It won just three games after the break (compared to its six prior) to finish 9-8.
The team had another 9-8 season in 2022, but this time fared better out of the Week 11 break. Coming into it losing six of its last seven games, it lost just one game to the Detroit Lions through the rest of the season.
Through 2021 and 2020, the Jaguars won just four games, with two won before the bye and two after.
No matter what history shows about Jacksonville’s response to the bye, quarterback Trevor Lawrence said the team is not in need of any drastic changes.
The team prepares to carry over its early season success when it takes on the struggling division rival Indianapolis Colts (2-4) at home Nov. 1.
“We have a bye week next week, so we’ll have some time to reflect and just see what we need to get better at,” Lawrence said after the Texans game. “We got a lot of confidence. We know who we are. We’re not going to go soul-searching or anything like that; it’s just, how can we continue to do the little things better and better because they cost you in these tight games.”
