The Jacksonville Jaguars enter 2026 in a position this franchise hasn’t occupied in years: as the team to beat. After a breakout season under first-year head coach Liam Coen, the pressure shifts from “prove you belong” to “prove it wasn’t a one-year fluke” — and our team thinks that question has real answers on both sides.
2025 Season Recap
Jacksonville’s turnaround in 2025 was about as complete as it gets. A year removed from a 4-13 finish, Liam Coen’s first season as head coach produced a 13-4 record, an AFC South title, and the franchise’s first double-digit-win season since 2017. The Jaguars clinched their 10th win by Week 15 and closed the regular season on an eight-game winning streak, sweeping every team in the AFC South along the way — the only team in the division to manage that. The run ended with a 27-24 Wild Card loss to Buffalo, but a two-year playoff drought was over, and the individual numbers backed up the team-wide leap: Trevor Lawrence set a franchise record with 38 total touchdowns, the defense picked off 22 passes (also a franchise record), Josh Hines-Allen broke the team’s career sack mark, and kicker Cam Little set the NFL record for longest field goal at 68 yards. First-overall pick Travis Hunter was a bright spot before an LCL injury in Week 10 ended his rookie season early.
Offseason Moves
The headline decision this offseason was really about what Jacksonville didn’t do: there was no coaching change. Coen returns for year two, and both coordinators from the 2025 breakout — offensive coordinator Grant Udinski and defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile — agreed to terms to stay on, giving the Jaguars a level of staff continuity this franchise hasn’t had in a long time.
Roster-wise, general manager James Gladstone leaned toward retention over reinvention, prioritizing re-signing pieces from the 2025 roster — including Keith Taylor, Christian Braswell, Montaric Brown, Dennis Gardeck, Matt Dickerson, Quintin Morris, and DeeJay Dallas — while staying relatively quiet in outside free agency to help preserve 2027 compensatory draft capital. The one notable outside addition was running back Chris Rodriguez on a two-year, $10 million deal.
The bigger story was who left. Travis Etienne signed a four-year, $52 million deal with New Orleans, taking the lead role in Jacksonville’s backfield with him. Devin Lloyd, who authored the longest defensive touchdown in franchise history in 2025, signed with Carolina. Safety Andrew Wingard left for Arizona, receiver Dyami Brown signed with Washington, and the team moved on from Joshua Cephus and tight end Johnny Mundt. The 10-pick draft class was defense- and offensive-line-heavy, headlined by tight ends Nate Boerkircher and Tanner Koziol, interior defensive lineman Albert Regis, and guard Emmanuel Pregnon — depth and development pieces rather than headline-grabbers, in keeping with the offseason’s overall conservative approach.
2026 Season Outlook
Jacksonville’s reward for winning the AFC South is a schedule that makes them earn it twice. Four of their first five opponents made the 2025 playoffs, including a Week 6 trip to London to face division rival Houston — a game that carries extra weight given the Jaguars won’t have home-field advantage for it, and an early loss could put them chasing the Texans for the division lead the rest of the way. The stretch from Weeks 2 through 6 (at Denver, home against New England, then home-designated London games against Philadelphia and Houston, with a road trip to Cincinnati mixed in) is as tough a five-week run as anyone in the AFC will face. There’s real relief on the other side of it, though: Weeks 8 through 12 line up favorably, built mostly around division opponents Indianapolis and Tennessee plus the Giants. The closing stretch tightens back up, with seven of the final eleven games on the road.
Our Team’s Projection
We’re projecting Jacksonville at 10-7 for 2026. That’s a step back from last year’s 13-4, and that’s by design — a 13-win season built partly on an eight-game closing streak is hard to simply repeat, especially with the team’s lead back and its top off-ball linebacker both playing elsewhere now.
The Jaguars’ season win total sits at 8.5 (DraftKings), and our 10-7 projection leans toward the over. The case for it starts with continuity: keeping Coen, Udinski, and Campanile together for a second season is exactly the kind of stability that tends to produce steadier quarterback play from Lawrence and a defense that doesn’t have to relearn its scheme, and the favorable Weeks 8-12 stretch offers a real chance to build a cushion. The under case is no less compelling — losing Etienne and Lloyd removes two players who were central to last year’s identity on both sides of the ball, the brutal Weeks 2-6 slate could put Jacksonville in an early hole, and a run of seven road games in the final eleven weeks is a tough way to close a season that could hinge on the same kind of late-season execution that made 2025 special in the first place.
Win totals like this one are as much about schedule shape and roster continuity as raw talent — we broke down exactly how that kind of analysis works in our Bet Smarter guide to season win totals, and it’s worth a read before locking in a number on any team this year, Jacksonville included.