In August of 2024, the Bucs had a pair of joint practices with the Jaguars prior to playing a preseason game in Jacksonville.

At the time, Jaguars head coach Liam Coen was the Buccaneers new offensive coordinator on Todd Bowles staff. The Jaguars won the joint practices – and the preseason game – with the Buccaneers rather decisively, and perhaps that helped propel the team to a 10-win season and a playoff berth as NFC South champions once again.

Just six months later after a very successful first year as Tampa Bay’s play-caller, Jacksonville offered Coen the head coaching job, which he accepted.

At the NFL Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, Coen told Pewter Report that he would like the Jaguars and Buccaneers to play in the preseason and possibly hold joint practices on a regular basis. In fact, he spoke with Tampa Bay general manager Jason Licht about it.

Bucs RB Bucky Irving – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

“Yes, yes – of course,” Coen said about the possibility of the Jaguars and the Buccaneers scrimmaging against each other. “Jason – we were talking about it this weekend. That will be awesome. It just makes too much sense. You want to be cost effective in terms of the way that you operate and it just makes way too much sense for us to not have a standing preseason game – whether it’s a joint practice or game throughout the preseason. It kind of makes just too much sense.”

Bucs, Jaguars Plan On Lobbying The NFL For Preseason Game, Joint Practices

While Liam Coen and Jason Licht would like to see Jacksonville and Tampa Bay compete against each other in August, the NFL ultimately sets the preseason schedule for all teams. However, the league will accept input from the clubs.

It sounds like the Buccaneers and Jaguars will be lobbying the NFL to try to make that happen. Coen would like to see it happen this year.

“I don’t know,” Coen said. “We’ll try. We’ll try, but ultimately it’s not our decision. It’s kind of like the Wizard of Oz kind of deal. It just happens.”

The Bucs have been a big fan of participating in joint practices and have done so in recent years with the likes of the Steelers, Jags and Jets on the road, while hosting the Dolphins and Titans.

After a 2024 season that saw Baker Mayfield set career highs with 4,500 passing yards and 41 touchdowns, in addition to completing a franchise-record 71.4% completion percentage, Coen became a hot commodity as a head coaching candidate. After initially agreeing to a contract extension in Tampa Bay that would have made him the league’s highest-paid offensive coordinator after receiving interest from Jacksonville, the Jags fired general manager Trent Balke and opened up the checkbook and made a second run at Coen.

Jaguars head coach Liam Coen – Photo by: USA Today

After a financial offer that was too large to refuse as well as the ability to hire his own general manager, Coen accepted the job and became the Jags head coach. There might be a perception that there is bad blood between Coen and the Buccaneers about the way his departure went down, but that is not the case.

Coen had immediate success in Jacksonville, just like he did in Tampa Bay when he turned the offense into a top 5 unit in points scored and producing a top 5 rushing attack. Coen inherited a football team that went 4-13 in 2024 and produced a 13-4 record in his first season in Jacksonville, winning the division without taking a single coach with him from Tampa Bay.

The Buccaneers offense didn’t find anywhere close to the amount of success it had under Coen with new offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard, who was the pass game coordinator in 2024. Injuries ravaged the offensive line and the wide receiver position last year, and Baker Mayfield and running back Bucky Irving also dealt with injuries that robbed them of the effectiveness they had the previous season. The end result was an 8-9 record and the surrendering of the NFC South title to Carolina and that prompted Tampa Bay head coach to fire Grizzard at the end of the season.