When a linebacker leads the entire NFL in interceptions, you know something wonderful is cooking. That’s been the surreal reality for the Jacksonville Jaguars, who’ve seen Devin Lloyd, their 1st-round pick, rack up an absurd 4 interceptions through 6 weeks of the 2025 campaign. Head coach Liam Coen took full responsibility after giving the injury update.

He’s already tallied 129 interception yards this season, including a franchise-record 99-yd pick-six that stunned Patrick Mahomes. But that wonder, that reliable defensive anchor, vanished in the 2nd half of Sunday’s 20-12 loss to the Seattle Seahawks at EverBank Stadium.

Coach Coen confirmed the bad news after the game, explaining the linebacker’s right leg injury with the kind of specific, worrying detail. He had tightness in his right leg, which kept him off the field in the second half. “Came in in the second half, it tightened up on him. We tried to loosen up,” Coen said, detailing the saga of the right leg issue. Lloyd, true to his grit, “tried to go, in the second half. Just couldn’t do it.”

The loss itself, ending a 3-game winning streak, stings. However, the absence of a player who has recorded 383 total career tackles, a player who became only the third Jaguar in history to reach 100+ tackles in his first three seasons, is a significant blow. And yet, Lloyd’s mysterious physical barrier was only half the story.

Coen’s Jaguars’ self-sabotage

If the injury was a physical tragedy, the penalties were an existential one. This 20-12 stumble was less about what the Seahawks did and more about what the Jacksonville Jaguars did to themselves. The final tally? A punishing 10 penalties for 76 yds. The coach didn’t mince words, taking full ownership of the chaos. “It’s on me,” Coen stated. “It’s an undisciplined operation at the moment, and it’s on me. And it has to get fixed.”

That “undisciplined operation” saw QB Trevor Lawrence get sacked seven times on Sunday, a higher total in one game than he accumulated across the entire first five games (six sacks). The Seahawks were officially credited with seven quarterback hits on Trevor Lawrence, with estimates suggesting they pressured him between 20 and 25 times throughout the game. On offense alone, the Jags committed seven penalties, five of which immediately shoved them into second or third downs requiring 15 or more yards for a conversion.

“A lot of self-inflicted wounds, like we’ve talked about in the past,” Lawrence admitted, sounding exhausted. “We’ve got to clean it up. We can’t have so many penalties.”

Right tackle Anton Harrison incurred 2 illegal formation penalties in the 2nd quarter alone, negating a 9-yard run by T. Etienne Jr. Another illegal formation penalty on Harrison in the second quarter wiped out a seven-yard reception by Etienne. The moment that truly captured the team’s self-sabotage came when rookie Travis Hunter’s offside penalty wiped out a stunning 46-yard TD pass from Lawrence to B. Thomas Jr. 

B. Thomas Jr. summed up: “Every time we’d get a good play or get a drive started, I feel like we would set ourselves back with a penalty or something.” This pattern—this Achilles heel, as Coen called it—is why the Jags have 52 penalties for 409 yds across six games, way up from their season-low against Kansas City.

Now, the Jaguars are taking the show on the road to London to face the Rams. Coen sees it not as a threat but a chance for monastic correction: “We’re flying to another country, being together as a group. We’ll look ourselves in the mirror and try to figure out… what is standing in our way, because right now, it’s us.”