Ep. 37: Continuously Finding Ways To Win | Jags A.M. Podcast

Now Jaguars get an ugly win in Pittsburgh, but they are six and two as we head into the bye week. What's your letter grade for them so far this season?

Has to be an A. Six and two with what they've been through schedule wise, I can't imagine it being anything but an A.

A welcome into Jags am Kayannie Stevens, Brian Sexton, John Osier. A's all around for this team because you can complain, you can say they're winning it ugly and they're not doing what they need to do. But they are six and two and that's one of the best starts this team has ever had in the season. And Brian, it's just remarkable that they've been able to do this. I know we expected a lot of them, but the way that they've been able to.

Do it as well, you know what I mean. I think it The most optimistic of Jaguars fans would have said, yeah, I think they could get the six of two. That would be before this began, after the loss of the Texans. I think all of us, John were saying, all right, well, you know, how long is it gonna take for this team to get out of its own way. We didn't take very long. The next week they started turning this

Yeah, it's it's the NFL. I mean, nobody expected the Chiefs to lose to the Broncos yesterday. You're gonna have those kind of games. So six and two to me feels that. You know, if somebody last night saying, well they should be seven and one, I think they should be six and two. They've really played their way to six and two. They're two and a half games up. I think they deserve to be the front running team

They haven't trailed.

They've trailed for about five minutes in the last five weeks. It didn't trail yesterday, didn't it didn't trail and anything trailed for a series against the Colts before they had the ball.

In the NFL.

You can't play better than that in terms of making your wins feel like controlling wins. I get they're not doing it offensively, but they don't trail Well, what do you want right?

No, Listen, you could see the upside offensively. Right when you look at the Miami Dolphins, for instance, they are scoring points. They'll always score points. They've got such explosive receivers at running backs. But their defense didn't look all that good yesterday. I mean, they gave a big chunks of yardage to Mac Jones and the Patriots. Now they didn't convert, and the Dolphins really didn't struggle to win

Here's my final thow on the offense before we move on. I get that it's frustrating, but I don't think it's tragic. Meaning in the games where they have really frustrated fans, the reason for the frustration has been they move past the fifty every time they have the ball. They were past the fifty nine out of the of their ten drives yesterday. I think that's what you're talking about. Yeah, you can feel It's not that they couldn't move yesterday.

This isn't that.

Oh, I think this is sort of indicative the league is playing this way. They're playing red zone defense inside the twenties make it tough. So the league is kind of trended toward this. But the Jars had figure out is how to get the ball in the end zone. One way is not to fumble. Any other way is not to listen bad intercepts. You just said it wasn't tragic.

Tragic would be you telling me I had to play without Traves, etn Calvin Ridley, Evan Ingram, Christian Kirk or Trevor Lawrence for any amount of time the guys are healthy, and they're going to be healthier in two weeks when they get some of these guys back. And when you've got that, then you've got the chance to be who you want to be on offense.

All right, guys, let's go over our big things. We touched on one of them already. But this team is six and two. That's their best start since nineteen ninety nine when they were over that. But Doug talked about what he's seen from his team and how pleased he is heading into the buy.

Yeah, I thought.

Defensively, just really again, an another solid game defensively, you know, kept the offense in the football game. You know, we knew going in how how opportunistic Pittsburgh's defense is, and then they capitalized. You know, obviously they created some takeaways and then our defense in the second have created a

To I know we've talked a little bit about this record that they have, but the way that they're doing it also not in terms of just defense, but players stepping up right because there were a lot of injuries. We've seen a lot of them are missing out in this last game. But what this team has been able to do in terms of getting backups ready to go in when they are needed, that has been huge.

And astute observer the Jaggers a long time could go back and look at two thousand and seven in two thousand and five and say those were good teams. They had good starts. Maybe not six and two, but they were good. This team reminds me of ninety eight and ninety nine John, because they have the answers. They have all sorts of guys and all sorts of answers for questions that are posed by injury or a lack of productivity at any given moment in time or a matchup.

I think if you really gave Doug the honesty pill, he'd have told you at one and two, looking at the schedule they had. I think he'd taken five and three easy, maybe even just try to get to five hundred, and I know they wanted more than that, but to have sort of passed through that, I think he's ecstatic. I think he looks at it said, I've got a defense that doesn't feel like it's going away. I don't know if they're gonna, you know, all of a sudden,

It needs it.

The last two weeks, forty four yard touchdown to win it, fifty six yard touchdown to it when they need the plays they make just.

They saw it. This is a really good coaching staff. I mean yeah, from the head coach and the coordinators who get all of the attention on down to Phil Rauscher on the offensive line, or Brenston Buckner on the defensive line, or Bill Shoey, who's got those two outside backers playing very well. We talk about players all the time. I think this might be the best coaching staff from top to bottom that the Jaguars have had since the early days of the Calflin regime.

Let's go to our second big thing, which is defense. Had today. We can give a lot of credit to Mike calgall what he's been able to do with this team so far this season, the amount of turnovers they are forcing, and also a lot of those plug and play players that we've been discussing, Andrew Wingard stepping up, mon Terrek Brown as well. And the defense had themselves a.

Day great, really good.

You know, It's something that I told the team, you know, the first half of the season, these first eight games, I think, you know, with all the travel and Thursday games and in and out of hotels and different things like that, the guys have really handled it extremely well. Proud of the guys for doing that, and really excited to be you know, six and two at the Bible.

So when you come into the game yesterday against Pittsburgh and you see Andr Cisco and Tyson Campbell are going. That's when I was concerned it was going to be a little bit of a hope defense. By the way that Andrew Winger and bust Around were able to step up and kind of Darius Williams has been playing. It's so many different names and maybe names you didn't expect.

He saw the first play of the game they went right at Dewey, right, Yeah, and he was up for the challenge. He had a great day this defense. I don't think they were ever really threatened yesterday. I thought they had control of it from the start to the finish of the game. Yeah, they moved the ball at times and got themselves in position, but the defense only gave up three points on the three turnovers. Right. I mean they were excellent against the run, not that the

Here's a you know.

In the ozone late night last night, I wrote that it really wasn't a very unusual and there's nothing really stood out about this game from the five game winning streak, And I didn't write that to be insulting. I said

Beyond that are their superstars? Maybe not?

But every position is really good and there's no position And now you're getting to the point where the depth you feel okay if Dewey has to go in, you feel okay if Montay Brown has to go in. Now, I think some of that back there the front seven as much as people, oh, there's no pass rusher, This front seven is really, really, really good against the run. It's exceptional against the run and against the pass, it's disruptive. Quarterbacks don't really have time to over and over again

Even calebon chaseon had a couple good pass rushers yesterday. You're not talking about the sacks, but you are talking about the quarterback never feeling comfortable. And by the way, Darius Williams play was it on George Pickens out on the boundary where he timed the ball and tipped it away early in the game. That was a spectacular play.

He's been spectacular all around. Our final big thing turnover troubles, because fair of us to point out that the team has not been doing what they need to do on offense in terms of not turning the ball over. Turnor Lawrence had a terrible pick at one point, and obviously the fumbles as well. Terbor talked about some of those issues.

We talked about a lot going to this game.

You know, this team that we're playing, Steelers, they're really good when you if you have more than one turnover, if you give up more than a sack or two, if you don't score. You know, I think it's twenty three points at least. Like their record is really really good when those things happen, and we didn't. We didn't do anything by that formula today. I mean, we scored twenty points, had I don't know how many sacks, you know, a few three or four, had three turnovers in plus

Try to taking some accountability for that terrible pick there. But also they didn't follow formula right, You're not supposed to turn over the ball against the Steelers and give them advantages that they did. They were able to kind of bounce back from that, but you gotta clean that up second half of the year.

Say what that the pick was the one that bothers him because John the Steelers create turnovers. On that trouble pass to Evan Ingram, I'm not sure he could have done. He had both arms around the ball and it was just perfectly time. The Steelers create turnovers, and.

Playing on a wet day, that kind of yeah, maybe that kind was going to happen. But even Biggs kind of turnovers gonna happen.

He's the bigbie thing, right, So during training I'm staying with my son and I shake Bigsby's hand and it felt like he was squeezing my hand with both He has an incredible grip and so I was really surprised that the ball came out. But you know, he's got one guy holding him up and the other guy's pulling with everything. I was still surprised the ball came out, knowing how strong Bigsby is. But that's what the Steelers do.

Yeah, they're good at it.

It was.

As much as people criticized the offense, and I get that it it was staggering yesterday, meaning.

Could not quite get there.

It also played well enough against a Steelers a defense that is good to get you three and then get you six and get that advantage. And then even when it was turning the ball over, they were getting into Steelers' territory so often that it felt like the game was tilted and the Steelers are always having to play uphill.

Even with the turnovers yesterday, it felt like the Jaguars held them. Yeah, like the big brother little brother. They were holding them off the whole time. It was just a matter of all, right, when are they gonna make the play. And of course it was a beautiful play on the fifty six yard at eat.

Oh what I was saying, Brian, that goes back to what you were saying.

There's nothing going on to make you think that the offense at some point is not going to have a day loser of points. It's just not quite there yet. If it was constant three and out, I'd really worry about it. But that's not what it is.

By the way, scoring is down this year in this league through eight games. Red zone production is down through eight as we're getting here in this league right if you just look at the numbers, the number of young quarterbacks is one of the reasons why. But defenses this year are playing really well. We shouldn't be surprised because the Jaguars defense is playing well that other defenses aren't lifting their level. It's just not a big year for offense, at least not the first half of the season.

All right, guys, stay with us, We're gonna go over some of the highlights from yesterday here on jag Zam presented by Carshield. You can call Carshield now if your cars out of manufacturers warranty, you don't get stuck with expensive mechanical and computer repairs called car shield. Now, welcome back to jag Zam presented by Carshield. We're in the Hundai studios. Let's go more some highlights from yesterday. It was ugly, but there were some good things to very

And it was so timely because so many people wanted to question Mike Tomlin right noted defensive coach praising Trayvon Walker. There were lots of skeptics and yet here he is coming out and proving that he's got it. Now. Does he have a bevy of pass rush moves. No, But when you see him get to the quarterback like that man all of a sudden, Now, if you're the offensive coordinator, you gotta start sliding back that way. And then it opens things up for Josh Allen, who came up with

When he pushes the pocket, he sometimes pushes multiple people back into the pocket. I don't think you can give him enough credit for making it difficult to operate to his side of the field. He's a dominant presence on his side of the field. And I get that people are frustrated by sack numbers, but I said, for a month, I don't want to watch this team play defense without Trayvon Walker on the field. And that's why he plays more snaps than anybody in that group, because he's.

The player they don't want off the field. He's matched the soldo from last year through eight games. He's got nine more games. My guess is he'll end up with seven or eight, and that might silence might silence people a little bit here's the best part that set up a third down and fifteen on a wet field for quarterback. I mean, Jaguars got the ball back and it's not Trayvon's fault. They didn't score a touchdown, they just were with a field goals, so he created an opportunity for the offense.

Well, that's what this team does defensively. They get other teams in down in distance is a big deal for play calling in this league. This defense, I haven't looked at the numbers, but just the way it feels faces a lot of third and sevens as opposed to third and threes because of the way they play run defense and early that Well, let's.

Look at some of those field goals. Obviously not opportunity you want to get into the end zone. That could have put the game out of the way earlier. But let's shout out the kicker because I feel like we don't get to do that very Lochen and Brendan McManus with two fifty plus yard field goals to start this game. There's a reason in wet conditions, there's a reason you go out and get a veteran kicker because you're not

But there are a couple of situational moments that really mattered early they faced I think it was third and twenty one. I think it was the first drive, and they got twelve yards and got back into where he kicked. I think it was his fifty one yarder. They got just enough offensive. Like I was talking earlier, you want touchdowns,

It's just another example of having the right person in a role like that. So when it does come to a point where you need kicks at a certain point, just skip points on the board.

You have that.

I think he was seventeen to nineteen this year, four or five from beyond fifty. That's why they went and got I mean he had the leg to give. You know, I don't know, not a shot at who is here last year. I don't know if Doug coaches the same way on that field early in the game facing fifteen to fifty one yard field goals, I don't know if he's as confident doing that. That sort of shifted that, and that's why Doug wanted Brandwan.

You're intrigued, you're gonna go watch. I am intrigued. Two steps of the kickoff and it's in the end zone.

Let's do it all right? What we have next? Oh the turnovers, those were not ideal, but you know, it happens. It happens first. I think the Trevor one is probably the only inexcusable one for me. I didn't love the play call with Evans fumble, but I mean that is what it is. That's with the weather situation. It kind of got knocked out there, but it's what they do.

It was a perfectly time tip this one. John about every six or seven games, we're going to see him make a throw that you go watch you throw that one. That's probably just who he is.

Well.

I also think it's he's been like we've watched him. It feels like a while now.

He's still midway through his third season.

You know, I.

I covered Peyton Manning a long time, and I covered him through some years where he didn't make throws like this. I also started covering him in his fourth year, and in the fourth year he had twenty eight interceptions for twenty six rather than number one.

It can take time.

For these guys to get that muscle memory of I do not throw the ball in this situation. This is it so look yes, bad play, but a really good play to make up for the second half.

Without a doubt.

He's six and two five and at the end of last season they've won eleven in their last thirteen games under this skit.

That is why you don't worry too much about it. He's just he's gonna take chances here and there. He's done it since he got here.

And overall he's playing much smarter in these situations this year than he did last year. This was more of a one off the last year's.

You heard in the post game he said, he's got your work on that. But he's he's a gunslinger in that sense. He's gonna take those throws over once in a while.

He's definitely a gun slinger. Let's look at Etn's touchdown and the two point conversion, because obviously ETN has been the heart and soul of this offense and the success they've had. But catching and running not just a rushing touchdown this time, and it looked a little slow. In the back end. I was like, we're gonna put the jets on there and there's gonna get you. But to see the kind of wheeling out and catching that, well, he's not a screen pass. It's something we don't always see from him.

The corner was breaking thinking I got this on that stick route and the safety couldn't get over there fast enough. That's you know. They talked to the postgame about they know each other and that was a beautiful move by two guys who know each other.

Yeah. I thought a couple of things were cool here. First of all, it was the longest pass play they've had.

And they've played together.

What is I think it's six seasons on the field together. There was some talk last week about Calvin Ridley being frustrated being whatever did you see the spike after the play?

Yeah, he was more excited than ethm One.

Well that a selfish player doesn't do that in that situation, don't.

I don't make too much out of it.

But he came along and he spiked and celebrated his teammates. I've covered some wide receivers who wouldn't be spiking the ball for their teammate getting a touchdown. Not that they were rooting against their team, but they wanted to touchdown. So I thought that was pretty indicative of like where Calvin's head is.

Something Calvin said in the locker room right before the season sticks with me. He goes, I just want to win.

And I think it's real.

Everybody says they just want to win, right, but some players don't act like they just want to win.

I know, to me, that play.

Showed something absolutely Later on we saw Steelers try to mount a little bit of a comeback. They got their first touchdown of the day, the only touchdown of the day, and the waning seconds of the third quarter. Pickens is the real deal. I mean, he probably shouldn't be talking as much as he does in the locker room, but he's impressive on the field when they get him the ball.

Well, he's I don't know how to describe him. He's got sort of a Randy Moss style body. He's tall and he's long, and he could jump. And he just leapt over the safety or was it the quarter that was coming underneath and Dewey was over the top I mean, or de dow he came underneath. That's just a great play. Great players can make great plays.

I think the Jaguars secondary would say that one catch he had was awesome.

Yeah, just the one I mean.

And that was a storyline afterward. I never really understood what Hope defense meant. I couldn't quite figure out that. All credit to metriz Party from the Times Union for writing I guess they were mad, but I didn't really understand what he meant by it. But it was just enough to get him angry, and you know he.

He talked in the Jaguars they responded.

Yeah, they did a nice job on a really good player. He is a very hard guy to cover and they did an excellent job on him.

We'll have to give do you a little bit of a shout out because he was putting in a tough spot coming in starting and he did well. He made some plays and one of the biggest plays of the day got his interception. Probably more talking about his touchdown after the fact, but what stew he meant to this team when you've seen what he's been able to do as well, just because he's a captain this year. Kind of the way he started here to becoming a fan favorite the way he is, He's had quite a journey.

He started as a guy kai and every team has one of these guys that you're always trying to replace. You know, he's not tall enough, he's not fast, he's not big enough, and it was a special teams guy. And then last year against Baltimore and Dallas, Uh, he found his role. I mean he made a couple of plays on third and fourth down late in the ball game that helped steal those wins. And then he came up with it. It was always the Jags. And now I mean, what did he say, I'm a dog, I'm

Yeah, and again Steelers fans were mad about it.

I saw one tweet somebody said they should arrest him. He stole a towel.

Look, this league, in this game is supposed to be fun. Yes, uh, duey after the game, and he's my hot takes. I'll say some of it. But he told Brent martineaud I thoughd to me lockhom for a few minutes and he said, Hey, we've got San Francisco, Baltimore, Cincinnati coming in. Isn't that awesome? Yeah, Like, this is a kid who loves what he's doing, loves playing. The fans see it, his teammates love him. I think you had him cut in the preseason.

Safety.

We're gonna make it hard on him, and he is and he has played better than both. Although it's nice to see Antonio Johnson, no doubt, no doubt, but what he has become, no, I didn't. We'll have to atable part about it. You can go back and pull the tape and see it where I said they're going to make it hard on him, but he has risen to the occasion that he has been granted on this team, and he's gonna be one of those guys who plays here ten or eleven years.

He's making it work. We love to see it, all right, say with us, We're gonna have hot takes coming up out of the break. You guys can sign up your furry friends for the Jaguars Official Four Legged Fan Club for pets presented by Forever That's Animal Hospital. Your pet will receive access to exclusive merchandise, events and sweepstakes throughout

Well, I'm not sure how hot this one is, but a good decision, smart decision, maybe even a great decision by Doug yesterday to keep all those guys who were injured on the sidelines, right, And maybe it was easy because the field was wet and you saw what happened with makeup Fitzpatrick. But they made the decision, and it would have been easy to understand why you try to give it a go with Cisco and Tyson Campbell because you want to get to six to two and headed

Yeah, I think I think he knew or felt like they could control that game against that team. Without those guys, you're always risking, you know. I was concerned when Campbell and Cisco weren't playing, because if the Steelers had a way to beat you, it was with two very good receivers maybe making some flukey pull I wanna say flukey, but making some big plays with a couple of communication breakdowns and new guys for that might happen.

Credit to him for not letting it happen.

What's your hot take force today? Je, I know it's very eloquent. And I made sure they say, I'm I'm sure your graphic was spelled the way one.

Yeah, we already talked to him a little bit.

But he's a special teams player and a backup and yet during this winning stretch, since it started earlier last year, in a way sort of become the face of the franchise. Yeah.

I was just about to say, he's the heartbeat of that lockerwood.

Yeah.

And uh, you know, I remember asking somebody early early maybe the last training camp about him and they're like, oh, he's on the team, Like, you're not getting rid of this guy. And last year when he was a free agent, afterward on getaway day, I was talking to him. Has he been on a podcast? When we had talked a little bit, and I said, hey, good luck and hope you're back. He gets there was no question he wanted to be here. This is where he wants to play now.

Who he is, uh, he's linguard. He's a guy. Remember Jerry Olshawski. They're the great Steelers era of the late nineties and early two thousand. There was a backup linebacker and a special team's team and they called him Jerry O. And no matter what when you talked about the Steelers, the Steelers talked about Jerry Oh. We had a guy here back in the early days named Bram Boyer who's now the special teams coordinator for the New York Jets. I mean, he's the guy. He was always too short.

Very good.

All right.

My hot take this week is that sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, And by that I mean some of the reactions after the game yesterday, in particular from the Steelers' locker room, had me laughing because we are now at a point in Jaguars football where people think the refs are pulling for the Jaguars to get a win over historic franchise like the Pittsburgh Steelers. So congratulations,

What kind of fine do we think Deontay Johnson is going to get for his long diet tribe about the officials lack of integrity? Yeah, I guess he's going to be.

I guess he could have caught the first pass of the game, right.

Oh No, but it was the refs. Well, the refs were bad in general, I will say, but I don't think it was specifically anybody.

The refs were good. Nobody ever says that.

Yeah, it's just I can't think that that affected any outcome of the game. When you didn't score a touchdown until almost the beginning of the fourth quarter. So I say that in a joke as well.

But honestly, I thought the Bigsby call could have gone the other way.

I thought he was down personally, but I thought, I think the way.

They never really seen that where they now.

And then well, nor the fields different because if they're ruling on the field being the other.

Way, the Jared's probably keep the ball.

Yeah, they never would all turned it.

And there were a couple of plays. Look, you can always pick apart plays.

Uh.

It's amazing how the officiating is usually worse for the losing team.

It's so weird how that works out. Anyway, we'll be right back as we discussed what we've got going on in the beginning of bye week and then the rest of the break. Jags fans, if you want to customize Jaguars furniture for your home, check got zip chare dot com to browse all customizable options. Zip Chair is furniture for fans. Welcome back to jag Zam. We've got bye week coming up. So what are you guys looking at

I mean that's it. I mean, you know, porch Fest and Springfield on Saturday. Ye, that's what I'm.

Doing, getting caught up. You know, the last month has been crazy, and there's all sorts of things around the house we have to do, right It's yard work, wool work, all that kind of stuff. And it's nice to go into the second half of the season not thinking all these things I have to do.

Yes, it's nice to have a little bit of a break. And then also we should say that we will be here the first half of this week because trade deadline comes up on Tuesday afternoon. You guys think there's any moves to be made or I would be surprised at this point just because of how well we played, But then again, anything can happen.

I'd be surprised because you got to measure short term expense. This team has salary cap issues coming up. Anything that you get goes up against that at some point. Maybe they're not going to ignore. I mean, but it's got to make sense in terms of equity, and I just kind of wonder if they'll find anything like, Yeah, and you.

Hesitate to give away your first round pick, I mean the bottom of the first round. People go, it's just the bottom of the first round. Well, that was anti Harrison this year? Would you trade that away? Right? And you can't trade your second right now because it's tied up with the Calvin Johnson or Calvin Ridley situation. So I just don't feel like I got to go out and find more pass rush help. I mean, the sack numbers you'd like to see increase, and I think they will,

Anyone, probably standing Pat. All right, that's it for us this week. We're gonna enjoy our bye week. We hope you enjoy yours. We'll be back here on Monday for jag Xam next week as we get ready for the forty nine ers game, it's c