Jaguars

The Jaguars enter the season as the defending AFC South champions after finishing 13-4 in Liam Coen‘s first year as head coach. Coen said everyone has returned to the team with the mindset of improving off last year’s results. 

“When you get in, everybody had a similar mindset of, ‘How good can we be? … It’s like, ‘Guys, we have not arrived. We had a good year, and we know we have a chance. But there’s a whole other level we’ve got to get to,” Coen said, via Jeff Howe of The Athletic. 

Coen said they hosted several former NFL stars over the offseason, including DeMarcus Ware, Fred Taylor, Maurice Jones-Drew, Devin McCourty, Jason McCourty, Marcedes Lewis, Ben Watson, Corey Linsley and Alejandro Villanueva.

“It was awesome,” Coen said. “Anything those guys could provide is going to help make us better. What can’t DeMarcus Ware tell Travon Walker, Josh Hines-Allen, Arik Armstead to give them an edge? I mean, I got better as a coach from the McCourty twins being here, no doubt.”

Coen said he’s always tried to keep an honest approach with players and thinks the team has responded well to it. 

“When the players know you’re honest with them, you’re going to hold yourself accountable as a coach; you’re going to hold the people around you to a standard,” Coen said. “If you screw up as a coach, we can be honest about that: ‘I didn’t put you in the best position to be successful.’ I think that’s when things can get dark when it’s bad. I say, ‘Guys, it’s OK to say we screwed up because now we can move on. Now we can go fix it and improve.’ But if nobody is willing to step up and say it, we’re going to have some problems, and that goes from the top down.”

Jaguars 

Jaguars WR Parker Washington is entering the fourth year of his career in 2026. Jacksonville QB Trevor Lawrence said Washington has been impressive throughout the offseason. 

“He’s such a grinder; he’s such a hard worker. He loves the process and does everything the right way,” Lawrence said, via Jordan Schultz. “The way he takes care of his body, his attention to detail, and the way he communicates. To see him take so much ownership now that it’s his, we get so much time to talk about things. You can tell he just wants to get better.”

Texans

Texans G Keylan Rutledge enters his rookie season after being a first-round pick in this year’s draft. Houston GM Nick Caserio highly praised Rutledge, saying he is arguably their “best offensive lineman.”

“Honestly, he’s probably the best offensive lineman that we have,” Caserio said, via TexansWire. “We’re glad he’s here.”

Caserio thinks the left guard role is Rutledge’s best place to start but could see him rotating to a new position later on. 

“At some point, we’re going to say in the end, we feel this is probably the best spot for that player, understanding that those reps that they get at the other position could potentially come into play at some point down the road,” Caserio said. “In the end we feel like Keylan right now is the best left guard.”