The encouragement given from longtime Jacksonville media member Lynn Jones to Jaguars head coach Liam Coen after their playoff defeat to the Buffalo Bills became one of the most talked about spots journalism moment in years. And after the week-long conversation, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt has a question – what’s the big deal?
The Jones-Coen moment was initially met with a split response. Some sports media members saw her message of positivity to the Jaguars coach as inappropriate given the press conference setting. Their argument is that the setting was neither the right place or time for that message and reporters should be acting more neutral and unbiased in public setting.
On the flip side, the moment of empathy and humanity was cheered by many others, citing it as an example that we all need to take a collective chill pill and appreciate a moment where a community pillar offered support to one of the city’s most notable people. Then there was Pat McAfee who just decided to light the entire industry on fire.
Your perspective on the Lynn Jones-Liam Coen press conference probably says a lot about how you view the media as a whole in 2026. But for Scott Van Pelt, it really doesn’t need to go that deep, as he said on his weekly podcast.
“It ain’t that serious. What we do… it ain’t that serious.”@notthefakeSVP wants those that have an issue with Lynn Jones’ kind, 20-second message to Liam Coen to just 𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙭. pic.twitter.com/zc9wOjWehC
— SVPod (@_SVPod) January 14, 2026
“The whole Lynn Jones deal from the Jacksonville Free Press. Quite a bit of reaction from our little group of the world. See a lot of media folks there that were like, this is not how you do it, embarrassing, take the credential. I gotta tell you, all of us. It ain’t that serious,” Van Pelt said. “What we do, it ain’t that serious. No one’s solving the issues of the world. We’re not feeding the hungry. We’re not healing the sick. We’re not curing disease. We’re talking about a football game.”
A little bit of perspective can be healthy, especially when it comes to sports and sports media. But for those who live within the industry on a daily basis know, there are few things that get the juices flowing in the sports media world like talking about sports media.
But one thing that may have been lost in the conversation is how the moment played in Jacksonville versus the rest of the country. Lynn Jones is a well-respected, beloved figure in the city who has been there a long time. And as Scott Van Pelt reminded us, sometimes that context is everything.
“When I see people that are so aggrieved that a woman who’s a fixture in the community and has been for 30 years writing for a community newspaper takes 20 seconds to be human and kind, and your reaction to that is to be angry as if someone were denied access to be in that room or denied the right to ask their hard-hitting question about the Jacksonville-Buffalo game, you gotta f—— relax, because it ain’t that serious,” Van Pelt added.
Van Pelt also reamed on the banality of press conferences and how it’s not often the place where reporters reveal universe-changing dynamics and offer illuminating responses that change our understanding of time and space. The SportsCenter anchor then laid out the facts of the Liam Coen presser that showed how the comments from Lynn Jones were a very small portion of what happened and that nobody else was affected.
“The press conference for Liam Cohen was 6:17. Three people asked the same exact question. One person asked a question about Josh Allen’s toughness. And they asked, ‘are there any more questions,’ he waited seven seconds and left. In review, great writers were not access to this place because Lynn Jones was there. And anyone who was there was not so aggrieved by these 20 seconds that they couldn’t then ask their hard-hitting question that was going to get to the bottom of the 27-24 result. No one was prevented from being in there because she was there and no one was prevented from asking their question because she was there,” Van Pelt remarked.
Hopefully now that everyone has said their piece on the Coen press conference, the sports media can collectively move on to bigger things, like banning anyone who uses the phrase “talk about” when asking a question.
