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Jaguars offense also had fourth quarter to forget in loss at Houston

Yes, the Jaguars’ defense collapsed Sunday at Houston, but the offense didn’t do anything well, either, sports columnist Ryan O’Halloran says.

Jacksonville Jaguars coach Liam Coen said the challenge he has this week — and he admits it will be difficult — is to keep the devastating 36-29 loss to the Houston Texans on Nov. 9 from turning into another loss in the next game, Nov. 16 at home against the Los Angeles Chargers at EverBank Stadium (1 p.m., CBS). 

“This game can’t beat us again,” Coen said on Monday, Nov. 10, during a video conference with the media. “It can’t beat us on Sunday at 1 p.m. because we’re kicking off against the Chargers and have a very quality opponent coming into town.” 

Coen said the week-to-week nature of the NFL forces teams to have short memories, good or bad. 

“We’re at home and nobody cares [about the loss to Houston] he said. “It’s just the next opportunity that we have to go try to get a W. That’s the reality … we gave up a 19-point lead in the fourth quarter and didn’t get it done. Their [the Texans] back was against the wall, and they played like it … and we didn’t. It’s hard, it’s hard to move forward. But come Wednesday, we’re preparing for another opponent.”  

Liam Coen on the team’s mood 

“When the players get it back in the building, we are preparing for another opponent. We got to get this tape fixed and corrected and moved on. I’m not worried about losing the team by any means.”  

Liam Coen on the defense vs. Houston 

“We never made them one-dimensional. Even towards the end of the game, they were still running the ball …staying balanced, getting 5, 6 yards in the run game. We never got them in the second-and-longs at the end of the game … we’re not able to get home and get them down. So we all got to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, ‘How can we, or I go improve my play and my job to help this team win.’ There’s no magic solution.”  

Liam Coen on getting TE Brenton Strange back 

“We’ll open up that [practice] window this week to get him going, get him practicing a little bit here this week and see what that looks like … Wednesday, Thursday, specifically to see how he’s feeling, see how he’s looking. I know he’s very eager to get out there and compete and play and make an impact on our offense, like he was doing before he got banged up … not to put a ton of huge expectations on him, or, different pressures. It’s more so just ‘hey, let’s get you out there and get practicing again. Get catching the ball from the quarterback again to see, to see what it looks like.’ We’re obviously hopeful, but have to take it day to day.”  

Liam Coen on making key plays 

“You look at [the first] Houston game … tough, tight, close ball game. The whole way we made a play to BT [Brian Thomas Jr.] to go up, and then we obviously had the tip pick by Antonio [Johnson] at the end of the game … make those one or two plays that needed to happen to seal the deal. We didn’t find that play yesterday, whether we were pressing too much to make the play and didn’t to the finish, the mindset, the mentality to go take it didn’t come with multiple instances where the ball was up in the air, tipped, and it just didn’t go our way. We needed one play, we needed a stop, we needed a third-down conversion on offense. And those plays didn’t happen. That is absolutely maddening, but it’s also this is the NFL. Those things happen all the time in this league. Just so happened to be on the wrong side of it yesterday.”  

Will Liam Coen challenge the players or move on? 

“We kind of went at it both ways in the team meeting today, in terms of, ‘guys … nobody cares at the end of the day … we’re kicking off on Sunday against the Chargers, not playing the Texans again. And we can’t relive the moment. We can’t change anything about the outcome of yesterday. It sucks. It’s brutal. But this is the league. This is the NFL, the real adversity, the real response to gut-wrenching, tough losses like this. Everything is in front of us, like we have every opportunity to go win this week. That’s all that matters. We got to win this week.”Â