Jourdan Lewis has found a fitting ritual for the Jacksonville Jaguars’ coming stretch of travel: watching opposing fans greet the team bus with raised middle fingers. The veteran cornerback says the hostility gets him ready to play, and the Jaguars will have plenty of opportunities to see it while EverBank Stadium undergoes its $1.4 billion renovation.
Jacksonville is set to play only four of its next 30 regular-season games at EverBank Stadium, with the construction project reshaping the club’s home schedule through the next 23 months. The Jaguars will move their 2027 home slate to Orlando’s Camping World Stadium, roughly two hours from Jacksonville, while the stadium work continues. The city and the franchise are dividing the renovation cost, with owner Shad Khan responsible for any overruns. Construction began after Jacksonville’s playoff defeat to the Buffalo Bills in January.
The Jaguars have adopted “Anywhere, anytime, anybody” as their answer to the disruption. Head coach Liam Coen has told his players the circumstances cannot become a reason for falling short, saying the team must be ready to fly anywhere and face any opponent.
That approach will be tested immediately. Jacksonville leaves Thursday for London, where it will stage two designated home games in eight days. The Jaguars face the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with kickoff scheduled for 9:30 a.m. ET on NFL Network, before meeting the Houston Texans at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 18, also at 9:30 a.m. ET on NFL Network.
The Eagles game will mark Jacksonville’s 15th London appearance since 2013, followed by its 16th against Houston. No other NFL club has played more than eight international contests; the Buffalo Bills hold that next-highest total. Punter Logan Cooke, Jacksonville’s longest-tenured player after joining as a seventh-round pick in 2018, will make his 10th international appearance against Philadelphia and move past former Jaguars offensive lineman Tyler Shatley for the NFL record.
Cooke said the meaning of the record is largely that he has spent a long time with a franchise accustomed to crossing the Atlantic. He did not particularly enjoy the earlier London trips, when the team stayed in a downtown hotel with limited options away from football. The current arrangement, however, has made the stay more appealing. Jacksonville is based at a resort outside London, where Cooke has enjoyed golf and quiet morning walks around the course before practices and meetings, with cool weather, coffee and wildlife providing a different backdrop from an NFL workweek.
Wide receiver Jakobi Meyers is preparing for his first international game despite entering the league in 2019. He has discussed the extended London stay with teammates who experienced the club’s back-to-back games there in 2023 and 2024, but he is not dwelling on the length of the trip or the broader road-heavy calendar. Meyers said the location matters less than getting the opportunity to play football, whether the game is staged in another city or another country.
A schedule built around travel
By the end of the 2026 regular season, Jacksonville is expected to have played in 12 different stadiums, excluding any potential road playoff games. That would make the Jaguars the first NFL team to reach at least 12 venues in one season since the 1926 Duluth Eskimos, who played 14 stadiums while hosting only one game that year. Jacksonville has seven road games among its final 10 regular-season contests.
The Jaguars defeated the New England Patriots 35-6 at EverBank Stadium on Sept. 27, but will not return there until hosting the Indianapolis Colts on Nov. 1. The 34-day gap is intended to give stadium workers an uninterrupted window, subject to weather conditions.
Jacksonville’s agreement with the city permits as many as three international games during the 2027 season, although none has been placed on the schedule yet. Between now and the 2028 season, the Jaguars are scheduled to play 26 games away from Jacksonville.
Coen addressed the unusual schedule during training camp, stressing that the league and the fan base will judge the Jaguars by their final record rather than their travel burden. He told players that this is the organization’s reality and that no one will consider a road-heavy schedule an acceptable explanation once the season is over.
Jacksonville has shown some resilience away from home under Coen. The Jaguars dropped three of their first five road games during his 21-game tenure, including last season’s London loss to the Los Angeles Rams, but have won five of their last six away from Jacksonville. Five of the club’s next six games will be on the road, including trips to the Baltimore Ravens and New York Giants.
Center Robert Hainsey acknowledged that the travel is not ideal and said there will inevitably be some frustration, but he does not expect it to become a problem. He pointed to the routine-driven nature of NFL preparation: Players know what each trip will look like, can follow their established schedules and avoid being caught off guard by the logistics.
For Lewis, the demanding itinerary also brings a small upside. More road games mean more bus rides into hostile stadiums, and more chances to spot the fans whose gestures have become part of his pregame routine.
