Jaguars are heading to London for two consecutive games. You guys, what are your concerns about this team going abroad right now?
I have not. You know, this is a group that's been over there, you know, from a player's perspective, and the travel logistics team has done this for a couple of years together, so I think they've got this one nailed.
Yeah. I have no concerns about the trip. I have concerned it's about the game. I wanted to get a.
Lad Welcome to JAG's am presented by Field's Auto Group. It's Thursday, It's travel Thursday. We're headed to London later on today, and I know they got everything in down pat but still gonna be a change of scenery. Some of the players talked about it. We're gonna get to that in big things. You guys, it's old hat for you. So are you excited to go for the week this time or you just kind of excited to see what the team comes up?
Oh?
Yeah, no, I am. I mean I enjoyed. We went over there in twenty fourteen and spent the week, and I enjoyed it. Enjoyed being around our team right and spending time in London a little bit here and there. I enjoyed the changes Therey two. It's a nice perk.
Yeah, I mean I was for home but Mary out.
But within the context of this, it is nice to get over there. For us. You get a couple of days we actually see it, and I think for the team, which is what people care about, I think it does help that second week. I think getting into a routine over there will feel more like a home game than maybe the home game, which is the first game, which is the second game, which.
Is you know, one other thing you know over the ten years now, because the tenth game will be played while we're over there. They've built that Union Jack's Club up and you see familiar faces. You see them at the pub with the party, you see them out and about, you see them at the stadium. You know, kind of like when you come in here. It's nice. It feels like home away from home for the franchise.
Some familiar faces in the UK.
Let's get to our big things this week as we head over to England. Our first thing is big picture things not looking great right now, especially the last two weeks. This team has not performed, but they're only three games into the season. There's still fourteen more games, and dun Peterson is focusing on figuring things out quickly before things get worse.
It's not how we start, it's going to be how we finish, you know, the season. And you know, yeah, we we're making mistakes. It's not like you know, teams have really done much, you know, to us as far as beating us. Where we were beating ourselves, you know, and that's usually the case. And you know, once we figure out and a lot like last year, we were
kind of beating ourselves. And once we figure out how to you know, kind of get out of our own way, take care of the football, tackle better, all those types of things, then things begin to go in your favor.
Yes, you need to focus on big picture, but Brian, they also need to get better right now, because if you dig yourself into a big of a hole, you're not gonna be able.
To get out of it.
Well, John said he wants to see them get a lead, right. I mean talking to these guys, none of them on camera want to admit that there's a confidence issue at this point that they're uh, oh, what's going to go wrong next? But you do get that sense talking to them that there is some of that going on, and so for them to get a lead and to feel like the team that they believe they are supposed to
be coming into the season would be really important. And I don't want to be dug right now and having to try to come up with another thing to say or another psychological tact to get these guys to believe in themselves again.
It's such a strange dynamic. This was a team last year that thrived on the comeback, I mean, and right now it feels like they're a team that you hate to say it, because they almost came back against Houston, then you have the weird play. So I don't know if they've lost their confidence, but they do feel like a team right now that I'm interested to see on Sunday how they respond to that first moment of adversity, because they have not necessarily responded great in the last
two weeks to situations. You'd love to see them get back to that. How fast has it changed against the Colts? Didn't you feel the whole game they were gonna pull it out?
Yes?
Yes, in two weeks time.
And in eight days from the five minutes for the Chiefs game, to five minutes after the Texans, all of a sudden, that sort of goes away. Guess what, Bryan's a week to week league. It's true.
It's remarkable, it really is, especially when you put in the perspective of a team that last year loved these situations. It's hard to put your finger on exactly what what caused it, right, but right away you know what will fix it, and that is some success.
And I don't think it's press clippings. No, I don't think I think it and I don't understand they're not reading them, and that's a good way to get into the subject for Doug. But I think it's expectations. You know, last year they've played with house money except for the last game of the season where people expect them to beat the Titans, and what happened And I was lost the Tiger like it was tight.
Joshua Dobbs Titans not Tanne Hills.
Yeah. So at some point this team needs to get a good w as the team that people expect them to and then they say, okay, we can play this way. Fascinating game and they Sunday.
On those fronts, it's certainly going to be interesting, big thing number two London isn't calling. We've heard a lot about the change of scenery what that can do for a team, but Doug Peterson addressed the fact that, yeah, change of scenery is fine, but it depends on the focus of the team.
I've got to trust the players, you know, and you know, they've got to do the right thing. They've got to be in the right frame of mind, and and I have to put it back on them, you know, to make the right right decisions and right choices.
And you know, by.
By keeping by keeping the schedule and the routine the same, they can give them the same sort of.
You know, the same habits they have here.
They love Doug Peterson powering through the fire alarm going off and building yesterday. But what he says is true. Yeah, change of scenery is nice and lovely, but this is about them playing.
Football and doing it in the.
Game as well, because at practice at this point, we don't even know if you can take much from it. It's more about what they're actually going to be able to execute. John, do you feel like that's true at this point? Can you hear much or see much at practice at this point?
I'm not sure you can see much in practice. I'm not sure you can see during the press conferences. It's become a very hard game to analyze this Sunday's game because we've talked through the issues so much. We know that their issue has been not scoring in the red zone. We know it's been they can move the ball and
then right when those moments hit. So I don't know how you know anything about this team until you get to third and six on Sunday at the twenty five yard line and see if they can punch it in until they get behind. This team was great in those situations for the last eight games last year. Clicking you get the idea that if it could click once, it would keep click and all of a sudden, oh, you know, but.
Firing a little cylinders.
That hasn't happened yet. And again I keep saying, it's a fascinating game, one of the more interesting games since I've been covering the Jag Because you feel like they're good, you feel like they have a chance to be good. There's gonna be some moments on Sunday where you feel like, if they don't get this, if this goes the other way, you wonder if you wonder what it's going to do. Their confidence. It's a turning point game. It's not must win, but boy, it's, as I said, winning, woinden't stink.
I spent some time yesterday in the locker room talking Andrancisco, and he said, they're talking to each other right, not in a negative way. They are talking in a realistic way about how to approach this. They're being honest with each other. He used the word transparent. They're all talking about where they are and what they're thinking so that together they can get through this. I get this this week when things go bad, at least on the defensive side of the ball, because that's where I spent a
lot of my attention yesterday in the locker room. They're ready for it. They are ready to put their hand in the ground or to leap his eyes as they can and knock a pass away. They're not gonna let a bad player, adversity get them off track.
And one piece of hoke, I'm gonna give you some hope.
That sounds well, you're gonna give it means more coming from you, obviously, but not a hopeful guy.
They when Doug kind of put a foot in their butt on Sunday. They came out and they played really well with a lot of energy in the first part of that third quarter and looked like the team you expected it to be. And then you had a weird play go against him. So maybe that's what it took and maybe what we saw early in that third quarter, because my guess is the foot span and the butt all week. So I I gotta believe they come out with their hair on fire on Sunday, and maybe that's
what we'll see. They had dug such a hole on Sunday that one little bad thing went against him, as like, okay, here.
We go again. So maybe that's the ray of your hope was good coming from you. It's a little brighter because well, you know, things are never bright exactly. That's why I say hope comes for him. It means a little bit more. I will say this. I've been talking about Doug at press conference. I've been watching body language. I thought yesterday he was himself for the first time since before the Colts game. I thought, that's Doug Peterson. You know, his energy level was where it needed to be.
He was, you know, witty and popped up. You know, at the end of that side about dum about bedcheck and all of that kind of stuff, because don't forget there's been some incidents in London through the years with some of the fellas getting out and about Doug's not gonna have any of that.
Of course not.
We're gonna go to our third big thing quickly. Third things first, this team has struggled mightily on third down so far this season. They're ranked I think twenty ninth in the league. Trevor Lawrence talked about that issue yesterday.
Just keep playing free, played like it's a normal down, like nothing's different. You know it's third down, but this shouldn't change anything. And I think that's kind of emphasis too, and for all of us to just go play.
You can play like it's any other down. But I would like to see them convert a little bit more. And you have to get those percentages up, Brian. If you want to be among the best of the best.
You got to stay on the field. You know. It made me last week when they failed on first down, right when there was new completion on first Down'm like, oh boy, now you got second to ten. You better get something done here. The failures on third down have bled back to first down, and if you don't get six yards on first down, you're thinking, man, are we gonna be able to convert and stay on the field
right third down? Just it's got to be near forty five to fifty percent if you want to go offensively where you think you can.
That dynamic you talked about, it sort of feels like that's where they are. Every little failure. Okay, we got two yards on first down. Now we're in trouble. Right now. It feels like that's what the team's going through. And I even asked Trevor, how do you He said it was a good question, by the way, to hear that.
I did hear that, yea.
I said, thank you, Trevor. You hope that they can find that balance, because that's what I was asking, was, you know you're talking about urgency all week and then you want to go out and play relaxed. I thought he gave a great answer of you feel the urgency and you feel the focus all week so that you
can not have to think on Sunday. They stuff to think on Sunday at some point though, So again a fascinating balance of how you find that calmness, that zen, whatever it is, and I kind of tailed off the question when I asked him, but I guess that's what they always go through. Yeah, that's what professional athletics is, is knowing that your job's on the line and still
being able to relax and have fun. It just feels like particularly focused on that concept this week, and again I can't wait to watch it on Sunday.
Done gets through this and gets this team firing. He's got a careers, some motivational speaking.
Oh my goodness, he's already got book deals. He's already got one book. He can get ten more.
All right, stay with us. We're gonna hear from our Falcons insiders. We look ahead to this weekend's game against Atlanta. Come welcome back into jags am. On this Thursday, we get ready to go to the UK, So we're gonna check in with our Falcons insider. Tory mclhaney is joining us today because we're gonna talk a little bit about the Falcons and the opponent that we're going up against, because this is gonna be a good one. Tory, did you pack already? Are you a late last second packer?
I just finished packing and we leave this afternoon, so I'm proud of you.
You have her take.
I was gonna say, I already realized I forgot my toothbrush, so I'm gonna have to make a run really quickly. But we make this trip pretty frequently. What's the preparation been like for the Falcons this week getting ready to go?
Well, we don't go to London as much as you guys do, but we have been in the last two years. We went in twenty twenty one, and so I think it's just kind of following a lot of the similar processes that I set up at that point. Now with a new team, with a bunch of new guys who weren't on this team, who were kind of making this trip forever, either the first or second time. So there's a little bit of everything going on.
You guys were often a really hot start, kind of ran into the Lions dead on last week. Where's the team at? Where's the mentality at?
Yeah, So I actually think it's pretty similar to probably where y'all are. They're coming off of a loss that they wanted to be better, They wanted to play better against Detroit and they didn't, and they were shut out offensively, and so there's almost a sense of redemption I think on the line in London for this Atlanta Falcons team, where they want to go out and show that the first two games and what they were able to do there wasn't a fluke and that the Detroit game was tory.
So much of the attention when it comes to the Falcons is on Kyle Pitch, Bjeon Robertson, Drake London. Right, not enough people know outside of Atlanta and maybe the NFC South that much about Desmond Ritter. So give us a sense of where he is in year number two and you know where his confidence level is as a starting quarterback of this team.
Yeah.
So I think with Desney Rider, he is as comfortable and confident in the scheme as we've seen him. And I think even after the loss, I think it was still on some plays you see that he is really understanding what Arthur Smith is asking of him. And I think that that's what's gonna take time, is all of these pieces working together. You talk about Kyle Pitch, Drake
Blend and John Robinson, Tyler, algebr Husband Ritter. These are all guys playing together for the very first time, and so there are some kings to work out, as we saw against Detroit, But this is an offense that has a lot of potential. It's just about finding ways to get into a rhythm early.
Tory appreciate you doing this. What the concept of Arthur Smith as a coordinator and as a play caller always fascinates me because he's willing to run his way back into games if he's down. There's that heavy commitment to the run that he had in Tennessee and I sense that with the Falcons. Do teams have a tough time defending them because of that because his philosophy is so much different in some situations?
Yeah, I think so.
I think what Detroit did well though, is that they completely took away the run very early, and the Falcons were in a lot of long first and second or second and third downs, and so they're kind of working behind the chains, and when you do that, you're in obvious passing down situations, and I think that's where the Falcons kind of got off kilter. But when the run game is going, as we've seen even last year and bleeding into this year, the Falcons can do some really
dangerous things. With Jean Robinson, Tyler Algier and potentially Corderrell Patterson, who may or may not have his twenty twenty three debut in London. We're still kind of waiting on that tory. One more question before we get you out of here. At the defense, you guys have so many new starters this year, a familiar face to us, Kalays Campbell of course joining you guys, and you guys have really committed to that and played probably a lot better than maybe expectations.
Have you been impressed what you've seen on the defensive side of the ball so far.
I really have been.
You can really feel the money that was pumped into this defense with guys like Jesse Bates and Kalayis Campbell, but Dupre, David An Yamada, Cayden Ellis. I mean that could go on and on, Jeff Akuda, who is working his way back into this starting lineup. So for this defense, they are kind of firing on all cylinders right now, even though they have some moments where you know, there's
some explosives giving up. But for the most part, this is a defense that really turns it on, I think when it matters most, and that's something that over the first three games of the season that has been very evident to me that they get better as the game goes on.
Very good.
Should be a good one, Tory. We'll see you at Wembley on Sunday. Thanks for joining us.
Awesome, Thanks you guys. All right, stay with us.
We'll preview our matchup coming up this week against the Falcons.
Will do he will? He won't? He might seefter the break.
I don't know all the characters necessarily and all that, but I definitely I've watched all of them. Character it'll be cool, it'll be interested, it'll be cool for the kids. I think, you know, if I was a kid and they did that for a football game, it'd be definitely entertaining something i'd want to watch. But yeah, I don't know. Do you guys know what.
Character I'm supposed to be? Are they have?
They said that it's just me. Okay, just in Andy's room, tryer.
Lawren's talking about that toy story broadcast that they're going to do between the Falcons and the Jaguars. We talked a little bit about. I'm not just entirely sure how it works. I'd imagine if I have no idea how it was, I'm very intrigued to see what it looks like. I'm a fan of it. Anybody you can get more involved, kids involved, whatever you have to do. I like the Nickelodeon games. I think that's kind of silly. My nephews really like that, so more power to them. Have fun with it.
Yeah, you got to capture the young audience. And it's not like you're going to keep watching the NFL on that right medium to get older. But if it gets kids fried up about it and they get interested, you know, hey, hey, maybe Taylor Swift will do the same thing.
Oh gosh, we can't do that. We don't have time.
Oh yeah, I'm.
Swifty all the way.
I think I canve Nahim one song. The interesting part is is that you know, with phones and with the Internet and everything, the kids can be distracted away from the NFL, especially if their team isn't any good, right, if the team that their parents follow isn't a good team. So this is an interesting it's an innovative way to capture that young audience and get them on football.
I love it.
Let's do it, all right, he will, he won't, he might. This Week for Us presented by Sabeth Brian.
Who you Got This Week?
I'll go Chad Muma. He will obviously start in place of Devin Lloyd, and he'll be just fine. I talked to him a bit in the locker room yesterday. He's smart, he's tough. He understands, kind of like Poulpa's Lesning, how to overcome whatever weakness he may have. He knows how to take his strength, which is his intellect, and apply it to be in the right place at the right time. So I think he will be just fine. Now, look,
he is not Devin Lloyd. He won't be your first option to cover Kyle Pitts, as Lloyd has the height and the length and the athleticism to be able to do that. He won't be that guy. He may be asked you at times, but he's not gonna be your number one guy in coverage. That's going to be the guy like Andre Cisco. But he might be your leading tackler on Sunday. And I know that's normally Foye a Lucan spot, and foy is going up against his former
team and so he's probably gonna be very motivated. But I just think Muma is going to be that guy. He's rangy and he's going somebody's got a spy on Jean Robinson. Somebody's got to find him, and I just think, you know, they're gonna ask him to do what he does and not to be Devin Lloyd. He runs and he tackles that. I think he might have a really big day in terms of a number of tackles.
Yeah.
I think Mom is really good. I don't worry about him at all, not being able to do it. The one element he doesn't bring that Lloyd brings is just Lloyd's sort of magnetinetic feel for the ball. So I don't know that Mom is gonna give you like the pick, but he's not gonna hurt you. No, And he's he's faster than you think. Yeah. I went with Travis etn and the second time gone with him in this. He's been the MVP so far practice. Yeah, and he will be good. He's he's been good every week, which leads
my quick he won't like quick transition there. You know, this is probably more of a me thing. I keep forgetting to sort of think about him going into the game, and because I think I spent so much time worrying and a lot of people have about the passing game, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, but he might be the best player on the team right now, the most productive player, and moreover, he might be the key to getting this
thing going. Everybody in the pre game when you look at the analysis gonna be talking about John Robinson about the Falcons running game, you kind of get the feeling they got it going a little bit early last week to Jag if they hadn't gotten behind. I think that was a huge game for Travis. This might be where people watching this game come in wanting to watch John Robinson and he's he's a wonderful player, but they might finish the game thinking about Travis ETM.
All Right, I'm going with Evan Ingram this week because we're dealing with the drops. We're dealing with the drop sis. He will not disappoint because he is going to be the leading pass catcher I think in this game against Atlanta, and I'll crew the won't disappointed because I combine them together because I forgot what we were doing. But if you need someone that's gonna catch the ball, he's sure handed. Evan Ingram had drop problems early on in his career.
He has worked past that he's now one with the drug machine, so I think he's going to be someone that you can focus on when you're trying to get this offense going, and he might very well be what you need to get this offense going, because then it opens things up for everybody else.
And that's what it's all about. Throw to the open guy, and is it just as simple as that, guys, just as simple as that. Let's hope.
Yeah, let's hope.
All right, we'll be right back, we'll preview the rest of the week. Stay with us.
I think that's the biggest thing, is when you're thinking more than you're just reacting, it's hard to play. Actually, at this level, it's hard to play that way. So I think that's for all of us, you know, myself included, is just to continue to challenge yourself to do that and to prepare that way so when Sunday comes, you can let it go and not think. So I think that's kind of the challenge for us this week, and I'm excited to see how we all respond.
Trevor Lawrence, don't think, just play. What do you guys think we'll get out of London?
I don't know.
Won Yeah, I had a great feel for the first game of the season. I don't have a feel for they.
I look last week, I said I thought it would be a comfortable win over the Texans. I didn't think that the Texans offensive line or defensive line would be able to handle the Jaguars fronts, and they did. So I can't legitimately sit here and say I know exactly what we're gonna get. I do think they'll be able to handle the adversity, and I think that we will come out of London saying Okay, here they're back.
I hope.
So I'll do a reverse drinks and maybe that will work. Or I'll wear mypposite outfit. We'll see what. We'll see what works. I'm all about superstitions, whatever I have to do to.
Pull my weight. Here, you guys, we're going to London.
We'll see We'll give it to you.
We're going to London, you guys, we'll see you later on. All the shows will be there next week, and of course we'll have a recap where you after the game on Sunday.
Enjoy it. M