Ep. 80: Takeaways from Preseason Week 1 vs. Chiefs | Jags A.M. Podcast

Welcome to jag Za.

I'm kind Annie Stevens, Brian Sexton, and John Oser are with me today. For the first time in about seven months, we get to go over at Jaguars football highlights from a real game. They had their first preseason game on Saturday against the Chiefs and things looked pretty good right out of the gate. We're gonna start out with big things today as we start off with.

Fast as our first Bay Day.

Some of the problems last year was the slow starts for the team as the Jaguars tried to get things going. Now, this was a fast start, certainly with that new kickoff pool. I ain't gone.

I looked crazy at first.

I'm as say, Tank had a much cleaner look for his I thought I was supposed to Detac with a long time ago in mine. But it was exciting to be able to make a play like that.

It was cool Again, was confidence to be able to be like, Okay, these kids will turn the room and it's gonna be.

Ax Shine yard.

Right Brian, We've been talking about this new kickoff rule, what it was gonna look like, and it was really exciting right from the gate.

Well, one of the things that we knew was that if a guy got free, he was gonna have a great chance to make a play because everyone is so congested on the other side of the thirty five yard line. And listen, there were two or three times where he should have been tackled where he ran back to the middle of the field and all you saw were red shirts surrounding him. He made a great play to get to the outside. I mean, this is a talented guy, and we didn't get to see enough of him last year,

We'll give it to him at the thirty yard line.

So they're gonna have to tweak it if they want to keep it. But mission accomplished on that.

Yeah, I think.

They're gonna look for a sweet spot in terms of, uh, where to kick the ball from certain rules in the tweaks, I think, you know, you could easily see the kickoff team try to drop a guy back to prevent long returns, not to start with it. So I think you're gonna see special teams coaches play with this because there's a there's no best practices with the kickoff yet. But credit to Parker Washington. Mean now, they've been looking for something from him for a while.

But what's interesting is is that Doug Peterson told me on Friday he wasn't gonna do anything. I mean, they were only going to do the most vanilla of looks on the kickoff team, and on the most vanilla of looks they.

Got the return.

So when they start getting clever and creative and changing up the kicker and the return men and the formation, that's when it could.

Get really interesting.

It's definitely something that's gonna evolve as the season goes along. As we saw even in the game on Saturday, things looked very different from the first quarter through the end of the game. Our second big thing today is gonna be clean. See any turnovers in this game from the team, which is an issue that we saw last year. Doug Peterson talked about that being one of the things he was focusing on just playing smart football, John, Is there a time to make of it?

I know it was, you know, the starters were not very long.

But to keep taking care of the football, that's that's huge.

Yeah, a little.

I mean Trevor was in for two series and didn't fumble, which is sort of the overall thing. I don't think you really see much of that until the pressure's really on in that situation. That feels like where his fumbles came from in the past. But sure, better to not have them than to have them. And I think the fact that you got through the whole game with the

I can tell you firsthand.

The second half of the first preseason game from a broadcaster's perspective, can get really arduous, right because you've got second and third and fourth team guys out there and they're jumping off sides and they're making stupid mistakes. The impressive part about clean to me was that in the second half there weren't a lot of those. Yeah, there was one here or there, but for the most there was a situation where they had lost track of what

Night ran That's a good point that leads into our final big thing, which is being consistent.

Doug Peterson talked postgame.

About how he didn't feel like there was a drop off no matter which squad was out on the field.

And I think that's what you're seeing out there in practice. That's what I'm seeing anyway. And then tonight, with so many guys playing in this game, you just there wasn't really a drop off, you know, because sometimes when you when you get out of that first second unit, sometimes there's a letdown or a drop off with play and I didn't see that tonight. Our guys played played fast, they played hard. Were their mistakes, Sure, there were mistakes and ms and things like that that we can clean

Brian, We've talked in the past about when the starters are out there's kind of a huge drop off and just not having that competition necessarily at every position, but having so many players that are kind of fighting for a spot. You felt like even when the second third string was in there, there was still a competition on the field.

Yeah, And the word consistency comes to mind, right.

Listen, the difference between good players who can occasionally play great and great players is consistency.

And if you go out there.

On the practice field early before any practice starts, you're going to see the same five or six guys. Going to see Trevor, you're gonna see Josh, you're gonna see Tyson, You're going to see Evan Ingram. Who's the best example of this, And what I've noticed in recent weeks, Kai, is that Evan Ingram, who's the first guy on the practice field every day is out there doing the same things the same way, and you now are starting to

I don't want to make too much of the depth because I thought they weren't particularly deep team in twenty two, and they wound up being deep in the right spots. In twenty three, I thought they were deeper and injuries hurt him. So sometimes depth can mean exactly where you get hurt. But overall, think about it, this is Trent Balke's fourth year as general manager, thirt year of a Doug Peterson. They had to draft the last year where

Maybe it didn't twenty two.

All right, stay with us here on Jags Am.

Coming up, we're gonna go over all of the highlights from Saturday's game against the Chiefs. Jags fans, register your furry friend for the Jaguars Official Four Legged Fan Club for Pets presented by Forever That's the Animal Hospital. Your pet will receive access to exclusive merchandise, events and sweepstakes throughout the twenty twenty four season. Visit Jaguars dot com Slash Promotions Slash four Legged Fan Club to sign up today.

I just wanted our guys to execute and play hard, play fast, and I felt like they did that today. It's a new season, new faces, you know, some old faces out there, you know, and it's just for us internally, it's just a different feel. It's a different team, you know, a whole different year. So it's not anything about last year. It's just about getting better and moving forward.

Jagg's turning the page the beginning of the season officially as that preseason game number one is underway. So let's look it back at some of those highlights. And we didn't have to wait long for a highlight because the first kickoff return from Parker Washington was a pretty good one.

Brian. We talked about it a little off the top, but I don't know if we expected that right out of the gate, at least I didn't.

No, I didn't expect anything like that. As I mentioned, you know, Doug had told us on Friday when we met with him for the television meetings, that they weren't going to do anything crazy. They weren't going to show anything, and he didn't expect the Chiefs would either. This was just a great play by Parker Washington, and this is what the competition committee wanted. They knew that in that tight area that if someone was able to get free, this was possible.

And it's just a great play.

John.

We've been talking and Trevor even I think, pointed out last week he felt like Parker was having a great camp high stuffing there. I still don't know what he's doing there, but he has been having a good camp and to kind of see that progression in his second year, John's been good.

Yeah, he's a kid who can make plays. Even when he didn't quite know what he was doing last year, he made a couple of plays when the ball was around him. If when he gets in the right spot and really incorporates himself in the offense.

Remember, he was hurt his first return last year.

He hurt his knee, so he really didn't get back and get any receptions I think until Cincinnati when Christian got hurt. A very limited sample size last year, so I don't really expect him to be one of your quote front line guys.

But Brian, like we.

Talked about, they need these second year guys to be guys that you don't hold your breath when it's time for them to play. He feels like that guy.

He's also a guy with ability that you could craft a package for and he's just really talented. I do want to point out real quick, there were a lot of guys that made blocks. Tyler Lacy had a blocky serb Dullah, Tim Jones, Tank Bigsby. What was really impressive about that play, beyond Parker's just ability, was how many guys were down the field blocking all the way.

So it's pretty cool to see just how wide open the space is because of the way they have to align now and just five yards apart, not kind of running at each other. So to see how that goes along with the season. Still one of our defensive highlights. Yes, Serubdulah getting a sack in the first quarter I believe as well, and partially because of the other two getting

He just kept coming right.

You see him coming all the way from the far side. Trayvon Walker looped in from that three technique and misses him right, and Abdula just got off the block and kept playing. That's a guy with a sense for where the quarterback is and that's shoot legal, so he would.

Have that well.

Doug has talked a lot about they're going to play. All teams rotate their defensive line a little bit. This team feels like it's going to rotate a lot. It's one of Ryan Nielsen's things. So if Abdulah can get in that mix of eight or nine, we can see this. I think it's important for that group as a whole, not necessarily Abdullah, but the group as a whole to have gotten a little bit of pressure.

On Mahomes in this game at some point.

He only played what seven plays, but probably good for their confidence that as a group, they caused some disruption. It's what they didn't do enough last year outside of Treyvon and Josh.

It's interesting you say that.

I think one of the media members was saying about the defense that it kind of looked like a hockey shift at times, really players coming on and off. And Doug has come on the record and said he that's what he likes about the scheme that they're running right now, similar to when he was in Philadelphia, kind of utilizing everybody's skill set at different points so you're not getting as tired and you can maintain through g.

And Ryan Nielsen and Doug both said they expected especially with Trey Bunn bulking up. He told us at Friday's two hundre eighty five pounds, that's fifteen pounds t everything was last year and he wanted to have his hand on the ground inside and that three technique on the inside shoulder of the guard. They didn't do enough of that with him. They dropped him back into coverage last year. That was him playing exactly the way Ryan Nielsen wanted

Step in like that.

I know we'll get there eventually. Sure he will in the regular season. We hope Brian Thomas junior, first round pick, getting his first catch of the year, kind of getting some experience under his belt.

And I don't think this is a great play.

I don't know if we'll get the exact angle of it.

But the reaction from the team on his catch right here, because obviously been talking about Brian Thomas Junior kind of getting him out of a shell, and he's definitely got out of the shell after this, celebrating a little bit, and just everybody's reaction on it is so funny. You can look at a different person every single time. What a great catch.

It was a great catch because Joshua Williams that corner is hanging all over him, and what you don't see until you see this angle is there's a safety who's bearing down on him over the top. And to have the concentration to fight off the one defender and understand the other one was coming and make the catch tells you he's used to making big catches.

Yeah, my impression is they really like this kid, and he's a kid who is easy to like because he doesn't say a whole lot. I'm not around him the way players are, but I haven't gotten the impression that he's come in and thinks he's that guy and all that so, and he's good and they know he's important. So all of that sort of came out when he caught that pass out of sidelines.

It was cool to see. I mean, this is a team.

The wide receivers on this team, especially Ingram and David.

Kirk, sort of define it. They pull for each other.

In twenty two, that was a real calling card of the bunch, is that they really didn't care who got the catches. It feels like that that they're encouraging each other. It feels like there is a camaraderie there. I'm not gonna say it wasn't there last year, but it sort of goes up and down. It feels like it's gonna be back this year.

It's very nice to see seeing everybody bond together. And obviously as things go with the rookie as he evolves, that'll be great as well. Second year player. Another one we want to talk about, Tank had a pretty good day for himself.

No fumbles.

As we talked about, ball security was an issue at times, a couple of big runsie core off and then also that return that he got a little tripped up on. But John, we know you love Tank, so it was nice to see for.

Him he was not to love.

I know he was too good in camp last year to be as ineffective as he was all year and to continue that. If you watch him, he clearly has skills. He clearly brings something to the table. Good for him to see that when the uniform was on on Saturda. I'm not going to overplay and say this means he's going to be an all Pro, but I think that

Brian, I think he can matter.

I think he's unfairly targeted with ball security issues. There were other players on this team that have had trouble with the ball. The quarterback last year had twenty one turnovers and in his first season on the starting lineup. Travis CTN had a couple of really costly fumbles, one against the Giants here that cost him a chance to win the ball game. So people said, well, he didn't take care of the ball. You know what, he had one fumble, right, he had to go off his hands, he had one fumble.

He's a really good player.

And the power and the speed and the versatility he's got. The issue with him last year was trust, right, and you could say, well it was ball security not as much as it was protection issues. And both Press Taylor and Peterson have said this year, we trust this kid.

And I think even the coaches looked back and regret that a little bit that they kind of went away from. I get why they did it when you have a player like Travis DTN and in a lot of close games, it's hard to go away from the guy for a guy that you want to show confidence in. But I think when they got together in February, that was probably an area where they said, you know what, if we had to do over again, we'd probably stick with him

You were on him early in training camp last year.

Everyone will be on him by the time this season ends. He is going to be an impactful player this year.

He's going to need to be, especially if this team wants to succeed this year.

For sure.

Let's talk with this catch from bether to Devin Duvernet, another new edition in the offseason. Didn't look he kind of looked up, found the ball and I don't know if it was a broken player, if that was the plan all along, but to come back and get this catch and then roll in and get a touchdown, it's just it's nice to have the versatility from the wide receiver group. They had versatility before, but just in terms of being able to do different things and expecting something from everybody.

Well, a couple of us.

First of all, CJ stood in with a hit, yeah, and a other nice ball. This is NFL stuff here at the end of the play, meaning the Chiefs defenders you see doesn't locate the ball and DuVernay does so.

Duverne is a fifth to six year guy, been around it, been doing it.

Certainly, if you can get this some impact offensively out of him every four or five games, huge bones.

Well, I think one of the reasons why people were uncomfortable with you wall adnew leaving was because he gave them something in the offense.

Not just as a returnman.

This is an All Pro Pro Bowl return band who also clearly can give you something down the field. He's gonna be a nice addition to there are more weapons and if Parker Washington deva duber. These kinds of guys can really give you a lyft over the course of a seventeen game season.

Yeah, and it seems like Devon may give you.

I love Jamal, great kid and mattered a great deal to this team.

You sort of had to work to get him the ball.

Ye. Uh.

I don't know if he was a receipt well he caulls him passes, but overall within the scope of the offense.

Uh. Probably didn't love when he had to be your third or fourth guy.

During a looks like he may be a little better within the normal scheme of the offense than Jamal was, so uh, maybe that's an upgrade.

He's he's fast.

Having options is good. I feel like sometimes you felt maybe limited by certain things on the offense last year. Now that there is options that you know are at your disposal. That has to be big for them. And then finally we're gonna do the chief's kickoff safety situation. Doug tried to explain it a little bit as we learn about this kickoff as things go, the Chief's called for safety because of taking the ball back, and they and and the way it's described exactly is kind of.

Under the old rule, this is a touchback. As soon as the ball crosses into the end zone.

Under the new rules, the ball stays live. Again.

This play is dead right now. Last year, it's still live until he pulls it back in. So he gave himself a safety. I think what Doug basically did was, you know, I know that doesn't feel right. I don't know why I need to get them not to review it. So I'm not sure he knew exactly why. It sounds like Heath and Zach had a general idea that something was wrong and said, hey, challenge, you know, couldn't challenge went to the official officials, got it right.

I think the biggest thing.

What Doug said in the post game press conference is probably the most telling thing.

Good that it happened.

Now, and I'll guarantee you every team will be looking at that in special teams meetings all week saying okay, here's the first example of why this is. You know, screwing returners. Make sure you don't do this. So this teaching point for the league.

Well, Derek Prince or Generic Prince, the running back, just he watched the bounce and he just walked away.

Clearly he thought that was right muscle memory. He told him that was a touchback.

It was only mchole Hardman who had the sense ability to get back there and to you know, at least try to down it. Otherwise Jaguars will fall on it. Right, the touchdown for them. You guys were on that conference call last week where they went through all the rules with Walt Anderson and we prepared for it on the broadcast, and yet I mean it was just thirty yard touchback.

Touchback comes to the twenty.

I mean, there's just so many different moving parts and nobody knows somebody knows them all. I don't, right, not a lot of people know them all. And this is going to be an ongoing.

My last all season as we saw it, and the refs need to kind of consult with everybody and look over things again.

I think that's important Doug pointing out just look at.

It, saying do you know what that one is?

Because you can certainly see where special teams coaches will play with the option of trying to have that ball bounce because all of a sudden, the idea of creating chaos for the returner and uncertainty in the return about.

What's in the surefield.

You can easily see how that could incorporate if and I think Heath said it when they first drafted Cam Little that he had really good control on kicks like that and was able to get spin on it. I didn't put two and two together. You can see why from seeing that play the other night.

By the way, something that came up I don't know whether you guys noticed it after a safety, how do you normally kick the ball back with a free kick from the twenty yard line.

I generally used a punter. They did not do that.

That's the first time that had happened, right, So they went right to the dynamic kickoff with the kickoff from the thirty five yard line. So that's a new change that they didn't talk about on the conference call. And those are the kinds of little.

Things that I still don't fix on side kick.

You don't consider, well they will next year.

We're going to see as it all goes along. Fun for all of us, you guys. Coming up after the break, We're going to do some hot takes after our first preseason game is under our belt.

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Welcome back games to Jagsam.

We finally have football to talk about, actual game, real game football. I know it's the preseason, but we'll take we can get at this point. What are your hot takes after the first preseason game, Brian, where are you going with your.

Well, you know there's ten of eleven is a good night.

The Daguars have eleven players on the roster from that big franchise record third team member draft class from a year ago, and ten of them played the other night. The only one that didn't was Anton Harrison. We know he hasn't practiced with the concussion the last couple of weeks, but everyone else made a play at big speed. Brenton Strange was on a beautiful crossing route and Mac Josie's missed it right, I mean, otherwise he probably scores you,

Call it flashing.

They show you things that you need to see to believe that they're taking steps forward. They've been a major storyline of training camp and as of the first preseason game on Saturday night, they all passed well.

It shows you they're fitting and you know, guess what, it takes a while in this league for young players to know their place, to know how to contribute. So I agree with Brian. I think that's a huge storyline. And if you see guys like Bigsby Washington out of that ten, if five matter this year, then you've got six guys out of that draft class who are contributing in a major way, you'll definitely take that. I went with it's gonna take more than two weeks to fix the running game.

It's my way of not having.

To say relax again because every year after the first preseason game I get emails from people. You know, I got one the other night. Devin Lloyd was awful. Yea, and he played what five play?

I mean more than that, but point being, I think.

Doug after the game had that proper perspective of the preseason. Week one these days is so close to being a practice that coaches when they come out of it, they're not up and down.

There's not the emotion because they know what it is.

We see helmets and uniforms and think this is the real thing we're watching. There's no game planning, etc. There was panic over the running game. They didn't run early in the game. That's not going to look right in the first couple of preseason games. It's gonna take until September or October for cohesion to come in.

So well, once again, you're playing with a backup at left guard, which we did all season last year. Ezra Cleveland didn't play because the heel injury that slowed him down.

Last week on Travis played eight or nine plays.

Yeah, so that's a timing issue.

Yeah, it's Force told me last week that the running game thing, it sometimes takes a game or two in the regular season before you understand what the guy next to you is doing, especially when you have a brand new starting center.

So that's going to.

Take some time, and we'll all just take time.

I think for mine, it's a little bit of reference of last year. So last season officially in the rear view mirror, easy for us to say obviously a new season has begun. I think we've all covered enough teams where sometimes it's the same kind of team rolling themselves out there. There was obviously a lot of changes and coaching staff, players brought in, drafted as well. It's different, it feels different. You'll hear it from the players themselves.

If you think of last year as you know, like a piece of paper with a picture on it. It's not hanging in the locker anymore like it has been all off season, but it's kind of tucked away where they can kind of still get to it.

There's still that sense.

Of what we didn't do well last year, you know, and not in terms of on the field, but off the field, in the locker room, on the practice field. What didn't fit right around here, and Trevor talked about that last week is that has to be a driving force, but it's not in their face every day. They've changed the way they do business in the locker room and it was obvious in camp and obvious on Saturday night that so far, so good.

Yeah, I think there.

Is an awareness that it's the sixteen minute, seventeen game season. I think they all knew that, but I think that's the thing that's in the front of their mind. It feels to me like.

A more.

An older team, a more experienced team, a wiser team of Hey, you know, whatever happened last year, we have to take this one day at a time, all those cliches and be pros from now until January and.

Keep it going. So it feels it feels right, it feels positive.

We'll see what happens in the joint practices, right, I hope we're about to find we.

Shall say with us here on Jagsam. We'll be right back as we preview what's going to happen on later in the week. Jags fans, if you want customized Jaguars furniture for your home, check out zipchare dot com to browse all customizable options. Zip Chair is furniture for fans.

Guy's a great he may and a great guy for all you guys like listen, young black successful.

He's single, by the way, just let everyone know he is single. So if you guys need somebody, he's your guy.

Tell you that gave Davis a great wingman, great guy to have in the wide receiver room with you.

That says a lot right there. I mean, it's nice.

It sort of speaks what he talked about earlier in the show that they like this kid. People forget when they come in his first round picks that they are kids and they're sort of looking around, not knowing what's going on and not even really sure how to fit in right like, so, uh yeah, that's a really good sign.

It's great to see Gabe get involved as well with that twenty yard That was a beautiful thrill by Trevor.

Absolutely all right, we got joint practice coming up on Wednesday and Thursday, the Bucks are going to be in town.

What are you guys most looking forward to.

I just enjoy kind of the competition, not going against yourself in practice. I know Doug always says that he takes these reps almost as seriously, or.

If not more than Yeah, it's important week.

He he really thinks that these are ones where you can control what.

You're trying to get out of it. You can get a lot out of it.

And the starters won't play on Saturday because Doug wants him to be getting this and then it's taken the place almost of that fourth preseason game. You lost the reps here matter and then you sort of use Saturday's game to get a look at the guys who won't get as many reps this week.

There isn't a bigger challenge to run the football than Vita Vea in the middle of that defensive line. I mean, he is massive, quick and strong. This is going to be a nice test for that interior threesome. Can they move him and create some seams in short yardage running situations. A lot of times when you watch that stuff on the practice field, you're just like, yeah, all right, great,

Absolutely gonna be a lot of matchups to watch. Come out to practice if you can.

Wednesday and Thursday, those are the joint practices with the Bucks. We'll be live outside at practice for both days joining me there, so make sure you tune in with us on Wednesday and Thursday.

See then