DENVER — As homecomings go, it was a little chilly. OK, it was very chilly, with a brisk early morning wind ratcheting up the bitterness of the reception. And for Tony Boselli, the gusts that intermittently enveloped his massive frame served as a fitting metaphor for what most football fans believed awaited the Jacksonville Jaguars later that afternoon.
At exactly 7 a.m. MST Sunday, Boselli, the Jaguars’ executive vice president of football operations, embarked upon an hour-long walk through downtown Denver with a small crew of fellow sufferers that included general manager James Gladstone, senior advisor to the GM Brian Xanders and Gladstone’s wife, Julie. A native of nearby Boulder, Boselli did not embrace his reintroduction to exercising in 27-degree weather or refer to it as “refreshing.” At one point, he visibly winced and shook his head.
“What are we even doing here?” Boselli asked. Gladstone merely smiled, shrugged and kept walking. Plainly, no good answer was forthcoming (and certainly not from a sports journalist who has spent most of his life in California).
Going into Sunday’s showdown with the Denver Broncos at Empower Field, plenty of skeptics were wondering the same thing about Jacksonville. Though the Jags owned a five-game winning streak and were atop the AFC South standings, few analysts were prepared to give them a seat at the big-boy table. They were presumed to be headed for a spanking against the hottest team in football.
Staring them in the face was a Broncos team that owned the NFL’s best record and hadn’t lost since the last day of summer. Often overlooked and lacking a signature victory, the Jaguars were about to face their stiffest test — and first-year coach Liam Coen made sure his players knew exactly how much skepticism they had provoked.
For Coen, motivational material wasn’t hard to find.
“I mean, look, it’s not like we’re making this stuff up,” Coen said Sunday evening as we sat in his mini office inside the visitors’ locker room. “That’s the crazy part of it. I’m not in there going, ‘How am I going to motivate these guys this week? How am I going to get them to play with a chip on their shoulder and have an edge?’
“Nobody thinks we’re gonna win, anyway. They know that’s the reality. So you might as well just keep playing your ass off and see what happens.”
What happened Sunday was a loud and clear statement that, in a year lacking an obvious Super Bowl favorite, the Jaguars (11-4) are a legitimate contender. Their 34-20 victory over the Broncos (12-3) kept them a game ahead of the Houston Texans in the race for the division crown and brought them within striking range of capturing the AFC’s top playoff seed and the first-round bye that comes with it.
Yes, I realize, that sounds a little crazy to many of you. The math says otherwise.
Sunday’s win wasn’t a fluke, either. Led by rejuvenated quarterback Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville shredded a normally potent Denver defense while repeatedly badgering Broncos QB Bo Nix, who generated as many turnovers (two) as touchdown drives.
And when it was over, as 75,261 fans headed for the parking lots, the Jaguars embraced their interloper image while insisting they don’t actually want more attention.
“We can stay the underdog — that’s fine with us,” said second-year cornerback Jarrian Jones, who intercepted Nix with 8 minutes and 8 seconds remaining to help snuff the Broncos’ comeback hopes. “We’re not tripping. We’re just trying to keep winning games.”
Agreed veteran safety Andrew Wingard, “Who cares whether we’re getting (recognition) or we aren’t? We play the games between the lines, and that’s the only thing that matters.”
Though they lack marquee value, these Jaguars are nothing like the flaccid 2024 team that went 4-13, provoking another organizational housecleaning. Since taking over, the leadership triumvirate of Gladstone, Coen and Boselli — a Hall of Fame tackle who serves as a direct link to the 30-year-old franchise’s brash early days — has employed a bold, disruptive approach embodied by a blockbuster draft-day trade for two-way threat Travis Hunter.
It turns out Hunter, who had a quiet rookie season before suffering a torn LCL ligament in late October and undergoing season-ending knee surgery, didn’t single-handedly transform the Jags into a marquee attraction.
Quietly and collectively, they’ve fought their way into national relevance, even if much of the football-watching nation hasn’t quite figured them out yet.
There have been flashes, including Jacksonville’s late-September road victory over the San Francisco 49ers (punctuated by Coen’s postgame brouhaha with Niners defensive coordinator Robert Saleh) and, eight days later, a dramatic Monday night victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. But taking down Denver took things to another level, and the Jags weren’t afraid to admit it.
“Going up against a great team that had won 11 in a row at their place and beating them like we did? That feels like a statement win,” veteran defensive tackle Arik Armstead said.
To get them in the proper mindset, Coen spent the week reminding his players of the rampant cynicism surrounding their legitimacy. He was handed a pre-Christmas gift on Wednesday when Broncos coach Sean Payton, in what likely wasn’t intended to be a diss, told reporters, “As you look at them and you watch the tape, it’s a smaller market but you see a real good team.”
Not surprisingly, “smaller market” references could be heard as the Jaguars strode from the field to the locker room — and in subsequent comments to reporters, including Coen’s, who said in his postgame news conference, “Just thankful that a small-market team like us can come into a place like Mile High and get it done.”
“A small market team like us can come into Mile High and get it done.”#JAXvsDEN pic.twitter.com/2V2i8UiKrO
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) December 22, 2025
His Saturday night presentation to his players at their downtown Denver hotel also included a sizzle reel featuring various media members expressing doubt about the Jaguars, and he continued to hammer the theme in the locker room before the game. Long after its conclusion, however, Coen didn’t seem to be taking any of it personally.
“It’s not just (Payton), right? And it’s not really a jab at Sean. It’s the overall message, and just kind of where we’re at as a team. Look, the guys don’t need much. (People are) giving us all the ammo that we need. It’s very welcomed.”
Another theme of Coen’s Saturday night speech: How to handle the glare of the spotlight without freezing up in important moments. Specifically, Coen reminded his players of their most recent defeat, a Nov. 9 game against the Texans in which they blew a 19-point fourth-quarter lead.
“I referenced that game in terms of, ‘We learned our lesson,’” Coen said. “I said, ‘This is going to be a phenomenal atmosphere … the crowd, the opportunity, a meaningful game in December on the road against a high-quality opponent. This is why we play. This is why we coach. And, so, enjoy it. Be in the moment and stay in the moment and try to truly enjoy it, and trust the people around you. Trust your preparation and go have fun and cut it loose and let it rip.”
Lawrence (23-of-36, 279 yards), who threw for three touchdowns and ran for another, has been ripping the ball at an elite level during the Jags’ six-game winning streak.
“He’s been torching everyone,” Wingard said of the fifth-year passer. “Trevor has been on an absolute heater, and so (as a play caller) has Liam.”
There’s another very important element to Lawrence’s recent roll: the presence of veteran wide receiver Jakobi Meyers, acquired in a trade-deadline deal with the Las Vegas Raiders in the wake of the Jags’ 30-29 victory in Vegas on Nov. 2. Meyers, who’d exchanged pleasantries with Boselli and Coen on the field, didn’t know he’d soon be relocating to North Florida.
Receiver Jakobi Meyers has helped unlock the middle of the field since being traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
Once the deal went down, however, he understood how much better his football existence would be.
“We played them, so I knew what I was getting into,” he said, smiling, after Sunday’s game. “It’s been a blur and a blessing. It’s going so quickly, and I’m just trying to savor it.”
The Jaguars are savoring Meyers’ presence even more. On Thursday, Jacksonville signed him to a three-year, $60 million contract extension. After Sunday’s game, one offensive assistant called him a “godsend.”
Boselli, Gladstone and Coen each lauded Meyers’ professionalism and leadership, and he’s been equally impactful on the field. His precise route-running, willingness to go across the middle and dependable ball skills have made Lawrence’s job easier and helped unlock Jacksonville’s other receivers — including Brian Thomas Jr., a star as a rookie in 2024 who has been immersed in a prolonged second-year slump, and Parker Washington, who caught six passes for 145 yards and a touchdown against the Broncos.
“Getting Jakobi really helped,” Coen said. “We had young wideouts. We led the league in drops for a while. Just the intermediate and the middle of the field wasn’t an area that we were able to really attack prior to getting Jakobi, which has now helped the guys like BT and Parker and (tight end) Brenton Strange, because now they’re able to do what they do best. And Trevor’s got a guy across the middle that he really trusts.”
Trust was also a word used by Boselli to describe Meyers’ impact on Lawrence as we walked down 15th St. Sunday morning. A few minutes later, we recalled his most epic Colorado athletic experience: Twenty-nine years ago, as the Jags’ star left tackle, he was part of a monumental playoff upset of the top-seeded Broncos that propelled the second-year franchise to the AFC Championship Game.
On the morning of that game, the Denver Post published an infamous column by Woody Paige that began, “Jacksonville Jagwads? What league are they in?”
Nearly three decades later, Boselli made a point of telling Coen about the way he and the other Jagwads got the last laugh.
“We even go back there for ammunition,” Coen said, laughing, as he prepared to leave the stadium. “Thirty years of ‘Jagwads.’ Look, our players know that the respect isn’t fully going to come. They do. They know that.
“And frankly, I’m not sure that any of us care.”