“There’s no secret about how important it is, but it’s still just a game and you’ve got to prepare the same way,” Lawrence said. “At this point in this season with where we’re at, when you’ve put yourself in position like we have and obviously like the Broncos have, and like a bunch of teams in the AFC have, every game is huge at the end of the year which is where you want to be.”
“You can’t put too much pressure on it. You’ve just got to go out there and play.”
Coen spoke of an opportunity “to go play a competitive, meaningful game in December – in a hostile environment, a team that’s won the fourth quarter in a lot of football games over the last two years.”
“This’ll definitely be the loudest environment we’ve been in thus far, so we’ve got to prepare for that during the week,” he said. “It’s going to be a definitely a challenging atmosphere for sure.”
The Broncos have come from behind to win in 11 of their 12 victories this season, and they are 10-2 in 1-score games this season. The Jaguars have rallied to win in 6 of their 10 victories, but have not trailed in either of their last 2 games and have won 4 of their 5 five games by 17 or more points.
“It’s good to win different ways,” Coen said. “You learn about your team each week and adversity is usually how we learn. We’ve been able to go through some of that.”
Said cornerback Jourdan Lewis, “We’ve been on a roll for a while, just doing what we do best, executing our plays and understanding that it’s about us at the end of the day. We want to minimize mistakes and play our brand of football. We have to go out and impose our will on opponents.
“It doesn’t matter who we play. They’re really good team but it’s always about us.”
It’s also a game in which both teams enter hot, with the Broncos’ 11-game winning streak the NFL’s longest and the Jaguars’ streak the third-longest behind the Texans. The Jaguars, after a 4-1 start in Coen’s first season as head coach, lost their next 2 games entering a Week 8 bye.
They have won 6 of 7 games since, and their streak of 7 consecutive games scoring 25 or more points is a franchise record.
“We’ve been through a lot of games together,” Coen said. “We’ve been through a lot of weeks, a lot of practices, a lot of walkthroughs, a lot of meetings. At this point in the season there’s a trust level between all of us that I think they trust that we’re trying to put them in the best position to be successful, and I trust that they’re going to go out and play their ass off every Sunday.
“That’s something that’s pretty fun to watch.”