Jacksonville Jaguars’ head coach Liam Coen entered the playoffs believing his team could make a deep run, but their Super Bowl hopes were dashed in a 27-24 Wild Card loss to the Buffalo Bills. Coen faced the media afterward, still processing the defeat, when one reporter oddly tried to cheer him up instead of asking a question. That moment didn’t sit well with many people around the NFL media world, including ESPN reporter Brooke Pryor.

“Look, it’s a kind sentiment, but it’s not the job of a reporter to console a coach in a postgame press conference,” Brooke Pryor wrote in her X post after the Wild Card game. “Pressers are to ask questions to gain a better understanding of what happened or figure out what’s next – and do it in a limited amount of time.”

As Pryor pointed out, postgame press conferences, especially after losses, are supposed to be tense as reporters dig for answers from the losing team’s leaders. So, Pryor made it clear that the local reporter’s conduct with Liam Coen after the Jaguars’ Wild Card loss was unprofessional. She made her stance on the incident even clearer by quoting ESPN’s post that showed Coen’s interaction with Jacksonville Free Press News reporter Lynn Jones.

“I just want to tell you congratulations on your success, young man,” Lynn Jones said to Liam Coen in the clip. “You hold your head up. You guys have had a most magnificent season as you did a great job out there today. So you just hold your head up, okay? Ladies and gentlemen, Duval. You’re the one, alright? You keep it going, we’ve got another season.”

Jones showered the team’s HC with praise in what quickly turned into a bizarre moment. Liam Coen clearly did not know how to react in such a situation, so he simply replied, “Thank you, I appreciate it.”

Liam Coen might’ve actually expected Jones to challenge his decisions to help fans understand what really happened. And there was a lot to unpack in this game for the Jaguars. In the fourth quarter, the game swung back and forth between the Bills and the Jaguars.

A lead for the Jaguars came late in the fourth quarter when their quarterback, Trevor Lawrence, found running back Travis Etienne for a 14-yard touchdown pass. At that moment, it felt like the Jaguars might pull it off, but then Bills’ QB Josh Allen put his team back in the game. With just under a minute left in the game, Allen rushed into the end zone from a yard out to give Buffalo the lead.

Liam Coen had later admitted that the Jaguars’ defense let this Bills’ TD happen to get the ball back quickly. So, the Jaguars still had one last chance, but on first down, Trevor Lawrence threw an interception to Bills safety Cole Bishop that sealed a playoff exit for the Jaguars. That moment alone could have fueled several tough questions for Coen. But none of that came up in that moment when Lynn Jones addressed Coen, and that’s why the NFL world reacted so strongly to the interaction.

NFL community blasts Jaguars’ reporter for her odd interaction with Liam Coen

After a season-ending loss like that for the Jaguars, who had not been in the playoffs since 2017, many journalists would have loved the chance to ask Liam Coen a real question. But Lynn Jones used her time to praise him instead, and that choice split opinions on the reporter across the NFL community.

“This reporter sounds incredibly sweet and thoughtful,” ESPN’s reporter Jenna Laine wrote in her X post. “I can tell she comes from a place of love. But if one of us – her female peers – did this after a postseason game in 2007, we would not have been allowed back. Women have fought really hard to be in these spaces.”

While it was very thoughtful of Jones to show empathy to Coen after the loss, Laine pointed out that the post-game presser was not the right place for it. As Laine noted, scenes like this rarely happen, especially with female reporters, in credentialed media settings. And that’s exactly why so many fans felt confused watching Jones’ interaction with Coen.

“My God, what happened to the NFL?” one fan questioned.

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“Was that a reporter or a cheerleader?” another fan asked.

“Very nice, but completely inappropriate in this setting as credentialed media,” another fan commented. “I assure you she was spoken to. Which is actually sad.”

Fans made it clear that they don’t want cheerleading in press conferences after NFL games. They want answers from coaches like Liam Coen after their team loses a game that ends their Super Bowl hopes.

“It ain’t a successful season if you get bounced out first round of the playoffs at home,” one fan commented.

While that fan’s opinion might sound harsh, it’s also true that, the Jaguars did pull off a massive turnaround under first-year head coach Liam Coen. The Jaguars went from 4-13 last season to 13-4 this time, powered by an eight-game winning streak. So yes, Jacksonville does have plenty to feel good about heading into 2026, but even if Jones truly believes in this, the NFL world made it clear that she should have saved that take for a column, not the press conference.