It is Thursday, March twenty First, this is Jackuars Happy Hour. Jaguars Happy Hour is presented by the Saint John's River Water Management District and now Mother of Maximus, Dog of the Week, and she's got the hardware.
To prove it. TVs. Kai n Ace Stevens.
Guys just butter me up every time with these JP gets the mean ones, but I get the nice ones. So whenever you bring up my dog, I'm very happy to hear that Kai Nanni Stephen's filling in for JP once again. Jeff Logman is back with us this week, and we're dog lovers all around, so yeah, we love the mentioned.
We both are.
It's been a busy week, Jeff. You haven't been here for a little bit, so free agency a lot has been going on while you've been gone, a lot of fresh faces. When you were kind of seeing all these moves go down, what were your thought process? Because last year they didn't do a lot of free agent signing, No, but.
I figured that they would be active. And of course, even though I wasn't here, you always follow it because I mean literally, you step away from your which is our source for news nowadays. When you step away from your phone for an hour, you miss a whole bunch of stories. So I was keeping up with my phone, especially with the start of free agency, pretty much NonStop throughout the day. You know, I'm probably a little annoying
at times. You're, you know, at spring break with the family and you're checking your phone to see what's going on.
But uh, but I thought it was very impressive. The thing that impressed me the most that I've always been a big fan that free agency should be an opportunity to plug holes, and not necessarily necessarily to plug holes with high priced free agents, but to plug holes with good players, some expensive, some not, so that when you go into the draft, you can address the draft in not a needs way, but in a best available player's way, because I think that's the only way that you survive
in the National Football League year after year.
So many moving parts. Welcome into Jaguars Happy Hour here brought to you by the Saint John's River Water Management District, Florida's water It's worth saving. Kai Stevens here with Jeff Logman. Jeff, we were just talking about this big free agency class. They also were kind of adding they added via trade to their backup quarterback obviously, and then signing Mitch Morres before free agency started. We've been talking about this offensive line for months now at this point. Obviously the back
end of last season that was a huge problem. Does kind of sharing up this center, which was an issue, does that hurten you a little bit that they're taking it seriously?
Well? I remember me and JP had this conversation and JP was kind of the mind that, hey, you gotta upgrade that. And my whole point was that, look, you can call it that, but I like to refer to it as competition. You can bring in more competition because it's not the It would be wrong to assume that Luke Fortner can't compete for the starting job, but to bring somebody in to compete with him. And I thought
Mitch Moore signing, I think it was very good. There's a little history there because Doug Peterson spent a year with him in Kansas City when he was I think a fourth round draft pick for the Kansas City Chiefs way back. When he's a good football player. He is much better I think in past protection than he is in run blocking. But to create competition with signings in some situations to I don't want to say shore up a weakness, but to get better, I think is a
better way to put it. Is a great thing. I love that signing. I think it's cost affordable. The money's not crazy, and with Eric Armsett it's a little different. Money goes up a little bit, but you're talking a premiere player at a premium position and so the cost goes up a little bit.
Yes, I like when you bring up competing because I think a lot of the issues. I mean, people were you know, maybe mad a little bit. They kind of ran it back if you want to say it last year. But you have to have that competition because if you don't have someone kind of behind you pushing you, you're may not get the best out of some people. Some people aren't built that way, right. They need that kind of oh someone's behind me kind of push them along. Yes,
they're professional athletes. You should be motivated on your own. There's plenty of other reasons, but sometimes you need that friendly competition in camp, like, hey, I need to go in or some is gonna take my job.
Yeah, there's a there's a saying out there and I hate it. Iron sharpens iron.
Oh, Trent Bulky loves iron.
I hate it. It's like, wait a minute, look, great players make make other players better, you know, and and competition makes everybody better, I think is an easier way to put it. And so even like an Eric Armstead, I mean he's going to come in, he's going to come in and he's going to come in and compete. I mean, clearly he's going to have a step above the rest because he's a proven player and he's been
a proven player for a long period of time. But the one thing that he has to do, he's got to be able to compete with himself to get healthy because from I understand, he's going to be having an off season surgery and to get back to the form that where if you look at him a couple of years ago, and he was a double digit sack guy. And I'm not saying he's got to be a double jit digit sack guy, but his availability obviously is a
big thing. You want to make sure that he's available so that he can play for you and have the impact that he's had in the past. For the forty nine ers.
We're gonna hear from Eric Armstead a little bit later on the show. He was great kind of in the press conference what we've heard from him so far, he brings in an interesting aspect I've talked about just kind of that that leadership. A lot of these free agents are from winning franchises and franchises that have sustained that, you know, playoffs every season. You know, if it's a San Francisco Buffalo, the Ravens, they understand what that's going
to take in the day to day basis. And I think sometime bringing in a veteran presence like that to have someone to look forward to, like, hey, this is what we need to do every week if we want to continue and make the playoffs.
Well end quality people, Yes, of course, I think that's a big tast that standard. Yeah, And that's one thing that I give Trent ball Key credit for. And you can debate some of his draft picks, but the one thing I think that you can't debate with Trent and what Doug has done, what they've done together, is the quality of people that they've brought in. Have That's been something that they're not going to, you know, soften up on at all. They believe that that works, and I
believe it does too. And Eric Armstead is a perfect example. I mean, talk about a high quality guy, high character guy. I mean, exactly what you want on top of the leadership thing. So those were positives, and you know, but the beginning line to okay qualification is he a good player or not? I mean, because they got to fill that category first, and then you want to make sure
that they have the other qualities as well. And from the looks of it, it seemed like all of these guys have that or those qualities.
And do you want to touch on someone that's not here. We were talking about it, you know, for weeks. Calvin Ridley seemed like, you know, maybe he's coming back. Obviously, they wanted to wait until free agency so they didn't lose that second round pick, and they didn't, but they ended up kind of losing their guy. Do you feel like this was an opportunity that maybe the Jaguars messed up with or was it just kind of the Titans caming out of nowhere.
With a bag they did not mess up. I'm going to stay true to what I said a while ago, and me and JP had this conversation. I've asked been asked many times by different fans around the city and They've asked me, what do you think about Calvin Ridley? I said, I like them. I like them. They're like, you know, should we tag them? We want to keep them right, I'm like, oh no. I mean, first of all, if you tag now, you're giving up a higher draft pick number one and number two. You're committing a lot
of money to what may be only one year. Now what sense does that make to give a third round pick for what may end up being one year of service and the cost of the money. I don't forget what happened during the course of the year with Calvin Ridley. There were times where the quarterback and him were not on the same page, that Calvin didn't seem to have awareness on certain plays. And I'm not saying that he was a bad player. I think he's a good player.
I think in year two he would have been even better. But everything wasn't great last year. So let's not act like that this was Christian Kirk of two years ago, you know, because that's not the case. And the amount of money that the Tennessee Titans paid you can't compete with that. I mean, if somebody wants to pay him that, then what power to him? But not you. I mean, you can't commit that kind of money or resources to that because you've got other holes that you need to
be filled on your football team. And the thing that this team needs to do they need to draft and develop wide receivers. And there's nothing wrong with that. But here's the other thing. Gabe Davis is a really good football player. Last time I checked, he was averaging seventeen yards of catch the last two years. And he's a big guy. He's not a burner, but he's a guy that I think that uses his size very well. He's very smart, and when you average seventeen yards a catch,
you're doing something right. And so I'm a big fan of that signing. And a lot of people may kind of push it off and say, well, it's not Calvin Ridley. Wait a minute, Gabe Davis. If you look at his numbers from a production standpoint, I think he's averaging like seven touchdowns a year. He's given you seventeen yards a catch. He's six foot two to two hundred and twenty five pounds. He's a good football player and he'll fit, I think,
into this offense very well. So I think the Jaguars did a very good job with the signing of Gabe Davis.
We've been talking a little bit about it on jagsam John Oser and I have a little bit about you know, maybe two years ago, when Trevor had a little bit more of you didn't necessarily have a receiver you felt you had to feed all the time, like maybe Calvin, where if you're not giving him a certain amount of balls, he might not be into the game.
We saw some of that last year.
He could spread the ball around a little bit more when they had Marvin Jones Junior. And is that kind of maybe a dynamic they might move forward with now where they have kind of Gabe Davis, Christian Kirk again, you know Zay if he's healthy, and Evan Ingram where they'll spread the ball a little bit around instead of having to feed one person.
Well, if you got Justin Jefferson, you feed him the ball.
Sure, no one's going to say that. Of course, there are exceptions to.
The rule, so it's all dependent upon what the talent level of your players are telling you you should how you should utilize them. Calvin Ridley, to me, wasn't a player that you should force him the ball because he he's that kind of a player. I think he's a really good player, but not the kind of player to the level of a Justin Jefferson where you feed him.
But I think that there were times that they felt like that they had to feed him the ball to keep him involved and to keep his attention throughout the course of a game. And that's not what you want. You want to let things happen organically in the system. And that's the way Doug Peterson's offenses have always worked. And again, you don't go into it saying, Okay, you
know what, we don't need the guy. When you have a guy and he turns out to be that guy and he commands that, then you give it to him. But right now you don't have that. Until you do you run the offense.
Where do you look at in terms of everyone says this is a deep wide receiver draft. We'll have a couple more weeks to go into every single particular person they might be looking at. But is that going to be one of the higher picks? Does it have to be wide receiver? There's other needs on this team and some of those are harder to draft later on in the draft. So do you maybe go cornerback early. Where are you kind of looking at in terms of the
wide receiver group. Are they going to establish a lot of draft picks to that or is it going to be a higher pick.
I think it's a great question, and I'm going to go back to what I kind of said a little bit ago, and because I think that's the answer for everything when it comes to the draft. Take the best player, and if it's a wide receiver, then you take it a wide receiver. If it's a defensive tackle, even though you drafted Eric Armstead, okay, then you draft the best
defensive tackle. If he's the best player. It's the greatest chance of continuing the lifeline of a franchise in the future is by drafting the best player, not somebody who, well, he's going to plug a hole here. Now could defensive back? You know, is that going to be something that's going to be addressed. Sure it is, because you draft corners every year, and you should because that's one of the most if you look at it from a number standpoint,
defensive back. I mean, there's there's five guys on the field for the most part, sometimes six on your defensive side of the ball. So it's a position of importance just because of a number standpoint. Wide receiver is also a position of important from a number standpoint because this offense runs three wide receivers all the time, sometimes four, so you need to have those two positions. But again, I'm not a big fan of saying, well, you know, you take the wide receiver in two and then the
corner in three. I will say this in the league today, the corner position and the wide receiver position have become more premium positions than they have been in the past. You know, typically the big guys are always kind of up there with the quarterbacks, but because it's such a passing oriented league now it's become even more important to get those two positions. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see what their mindset is. I mean with the release
or the weakness that they have at defensive back. And they did have a signing in free agency that is up because what's his name Williams that left Darius Williams and that was surprising to me. But then you sign a guy in free agency again, you plug that hole so now you can draft best available player. So it'll
be interesting to see what their mindset is. And I haven't jumped into the draft deep enough yet to know, but from what I understand, there's a lot of wide receivers and a lot of corners, so you should be able to get what you want in different places.
We say that, but identifying and getting the talent is always is always difficult because before the draft we think we have everything planned out, but well, the draft, you know, never goes the way we think it's going to go.
And the reality is it's a it's a numbers game, you know, a percentages game, whatever you want to call it. The draft, you do, you typically have less than a fifty percent chance of hitting on a pick. I mean, just look at it. I mean, and this organization has not drafted very well. And it's history even going from the first round, which you know, your percentages should be
higher in the first round. And so the organization needs to do a better job of drafting so that the lifeblood, the supply of talent continues to roll in to supplement this football team year after year. So it's going to be interesting to see what they do with the draft, you know, hopefully this year also from a production standpoint, because last year's draft class didn't get a whole lot out of Hopefully there's more out of that this year in year two.
And I think that's going to definitely be part of the plan, right because of some of those players that we drafted last year, you need to see them on the field more because we just don't know what's there right now. Right whether it's Tank Bigsby or you know, Brenton Strange, A lot of them we didn't see enough of to really know. So I know that's predicated by whatever's happening on the field, whether you can actually give them the ball or not.
Obviously, I like Strange. I mean, I think Strange showed me enough that the one issue that I would have with Strange is that they didn't really use him in a role that justified him being picked in the second round, because it kind of used him as a full back, blocking tight blocking tight end and it wasn't he wasn't really a big part of the passing attack. Well, if that's kind of was your role for him, then that's
not really where you draft that at. And but I think that there will be an expanded role for him going forward. I hope so. And I hope Tank Biggs biggs By gains confidence because what we saw in training camp last year, and not just me, but the coaches and all of his teammates were very excited about his production.
And then things didn't happen very very good at the beginning of the year, and then I think the confidence from him and then also from the coaching staff waned, and then it's hard to kind of get back up. And once you kind of get in a so called slump.
And running back is one of those positions you need the ball right to be able to do something. So he wasn't getting a ton of carries either.
Well yeah, I mean also, but you know.
Got to earn it. I get it. It's tough.
It's one of those things where, Okay, you handle the ball a few times, then you want to see some production when you give it to him a few times. And if you looked at last year, they handed it to him a few times and there were some plays that didn't go so well. So now the coach's confidence wanes a little bit, and then all of a sudden,
the opportunity starts to drop. And then when he has the opportunities in the future, then I think you could kind of see that he was pressing because he wanted to make up for maybe the mistakes that he made or didn't want to mess up. And then so when you get in that situation, I don't think it's good for anybody. And I think he'll be better in year two because I mean, look, he's been a good football player before, and good football players just don't all of a sudden just lose it.
Yeah, and he's played, you know, he was at Auburn. There was tough situations there. He never transferred out, he stayed there, battle through. He's got the mentality for it. So I'm hoping to see the same thing.
He'll be fine, He'll be fine. But I'm looking forward to seeing what his production is this year. And in Breton Strange, I want to I want to see him with a similar role but also a different role because he's a really good blocker. But I want to see him get the ball at times because.
We least see if he can, like we got to know he's got some talent. All Right, We're here on Happy Hour presented by Saint John's River Water Management Districts. Coming up after the break, we're going to hear from new defensive lineman Eric Armstead what he has to say what he thinks he brings to the mix here on Jaguars Happy Hour.
The Jags were a good team before me. And you know, whenever I enter a situation, you know, not just football, but in life in general, and when I meet people, when i'm you know, enter a situation working with people, you know, I want to make the place better than what I founded. I want to make a positive impact one.
So I think this team was already.
A phenomenal team, and I think I can help get them to the next level. So having that opportunity is something I look forward to as well.
Welcome back to Jaguars Happy Our Ka, Nannie Stephens, Jeff Logerman in JP is off today. We're brought to you by the Saint John's River Water Management District, Florida's water It's worth saving. Eric Armstead, the newest addition to the defensive line, saying all the right things he does bring
that veteran presence. We talked a little bit about battling through that injury, but if he is healthy and when he returns he's healthy, that could be something to kind of see what he's able to do on that line. We talked about needing more and just stronger, bigger guys on both sides of the line.
Yeah. I thought was the most important thing for this team in the off season was addressing the trenches and offensive line, defensive line, especially at the tackle position, and then depth at the edges there. Eric Armstead is big, long and strong. He reminds me a lot of Kalais Campbell in some respects, just because he's just so long, and he's a really good football player that's athletic on
top of being big, long and strong. But then he's got a great awareness to him and going to be doing some film room stuff with him coming up, and from watching the film, he does some things that he is really smart and aware of certain situations and he anticipates things, and that's what you would expect out of a nine year player going into year ten. And so if he can get healthy, I think he's going to be a really, really good acquisition for this football team.
But it won't prohibit this foot team from looking at defensive tackles in the draft, or should it should not prohibit this team from looking at that position.
It's a three year deal that he's signed, so as you mentioned, he's entering his tenth year, So of course they're.
Gonna be the money. I didn't see what they think. It was fifty ish, Yeah, probably about right.
That's probably it sounds about right.
A player of his caliber, I mean, sure is this not cheap?
And it's the intangibles you bring in, right, We're talking about someone that's been there, done that at a sustained level. And also, let's hear a little bit we're gonna hear from Eric Arms that actually talked a little bit about what it means to him to kind of be playing with Josh and Trayvon on this team.
I think it's important, you know, especially in the league this long, that no one can do it on their own. I've seen a lot of situations where you know, guys aren't you know, you don't get the full potential out of guys because you know they're not around it with other great players as well too. So I'm excited to, you know, take the field with those guys and you know, learn and learn some depas together and I start that journey.
We've seen Josh and Trayvon bounce off each other. They certainly help each other out there getting sacks or whatever it might be. But having someone like Eric Armstead on the line has to benefit everybody else.
Oh he's trust me, Josh and Trayvon are going to be thrilled. Eric comes from that, I mean, he came from having Bosa on the outside, so that's not anything new for him, having a talented player on the outside. But he's going to help those two guys on the outside a ton And I just hope that the Jaguars are able to draft and develop somebody that can be groomed for that position in the future, because that's that's
a premium position. It's hard to find three technique pass rushers that can do it year in and year out. I mean even if you have, for example, if you have an edge rusher and he's getting ten sacks a year, double digits, you've got a really good player For an interior pass rusher. To get ten sacks, that's considered great for an interior guy. And Armstead has been in that. You know that five plus anywhere up to ten in
his career, which is really good and really consistent. But again, that's you got to have two on the inside, and a lot of people are going to say, well, you know what, you can move Trayvon on the inside and you can find a guy on the outside. Well that you can do that if you find an edge guy to compliment everybody else, but that's not Trayvon is a first and foremost he's more of an edge player. He doesn't have the size to be on the inside down
after down. A lot of people think that that's where he belongs naturally, and it kind of gets a littlennoying here in that, because I mean, Trayvon is an end type player. If he goes inside, then I think it's going to be in more of a pass rush type of situation. But he that's not where he's going to make his living at.
Are you excited to kind of see what Ryan Nielsen is gonna do with this new roster he has on defense? Obviously we know it's going to be a different scheme than what we've seen before, but what he's going to be able to do with these pieces.
Yeah, the chess pieces are gonna dictate what you can and can't do. And I hate to use players as chess pieces, but in the scheme of things, that's kind of what it is when you look at scheme, and so for for coaches, you want to find out what you have before you kind of determine what you do. You're gonna have everything in the book because you're going to try to have some flexibility and be multiple, and
that's a popular term among coaches nowadays. But I think Ryan's gonna learn pretty quick what he has and what he doesn't have. One of the biggest things that dictate dictates your style is going to be your corner position. So I mean, where are you going to be at And so you got Darby Okay to replace a guy, but you know, are you going to draft a guy or are you going to do it high? You know, what is your covered situation going to be? Because we saw,
for example, you look at the last couple years. In the last two years the Jaguars defense, they wanted to be more of a man based defense, but they learned quickly that that was not the style that they could have success with. So the players dictate a lot of that. So I hope that they can get more talent in at that corner position to be able to play more man coverage because it will allow Ryan Nielsen to be
more multiple and do a lot of different things. Because that's when defense has become dangerous, is when they can do a lot a lot of things good because then you can disguise and look one way and play another way, and it's hard for offensive coordinators to really find a rhythm when you have a defense that you can do a lot of different things and do well.
Jags fans, we want to invite you to join us on Tuesday, April sixteenth, from six thirty to eight thirty at EverBank Stadium for the be Inspired by Jags Jobs event that's presented by the Florida Lottery. You can register now at Jaguars dot com slash bray Futures. We talked a little bit about this already, but you know, they cut Rayson, they cut Darius, and then they kind of
filled back in with Darby and Savage. But dB has to be on the draft list, right Obviously you're going to see how the board falls, but i'd imagine you want to get some young talent in there and see what you got. Also, Antonio Johnson, we have to mention we'll see more playing time from him and where they're going to use him.
Yeah, the ray Seon thing cutting him totally understood that I kind of predicted at the end of the year last year. Once we kind of got a look at Antonio Johnson and his skill level. I said, well, I love Rayshon and he was the hero, you know what, not last year, but the year before that. You know, the Dallas game, the Tennessee game. He had two huge plays in those games, game winners. And you'd hate to have to say goodbye to a guy like that, but look,
that's part of the business. And with the development of Antonio Johnson, I could kind of see that coming. Didn't necessarily see the Darius Williams thing coming. I thought he had arguably one of the best seasons of a corner in the league, probably in the top ten. But I understand it. You know, the cap ramifications. Darby's a guy that comes in, he's got experience, costs a whole lot less.
So but I think you know, when you were asking earlier about where do you think the Jaguars will use a pick to get a wide receiver and maybe a corner, I mean, I think the corner is going to be round one, round two, round three. It'll be somewhere near the top because once you get out of round one, two or three, the percentages of that player hitting, you know, and it's the percentages of games always, but the percentages for that position are.
Not very high, not good adds No, I'm definitely going to go early if you want to get a.
dB force, if you want to get a good one.
A good one, a talented one, which is what we want.
Well, look, you have Tyson Campbell right now, but Tyson Campbell is not coming off the best year.
And he's going to be up for contract him and Cisco next year. So these are kind of proven years for them as well well.
And you know the great thing about having players that are good if they end up having to walk. And the Baltimore Ravens have been the best in the league at that is that they continue to replenish the roster with their draft and then they allow certain players to walk, then they in return get compensatory picks to be able to draft replacements. And I mean, so the Ravens are one of the best at it. With Ozzie Newsom and now Eric Tacosta there are two of the best at that.
And you know, this organization is trying to get to that style to where they're constantly replenishing, you know, and Calvin Ridley is going to be a compensatory pick reward for this football team in twenty twenty five, and so sometimes you have to look at it from that perspective that even if we let certain players walk that are good, hey, what can we replace them with and what can we get in return by letting them walk?
Right halfway through here on Happy Hour, when we return, we're going to talk a little bit about the offense, the wide receiver room, that offensive line, all that more here on Jaguar's Happy Hour.
I feel like I'm I'm very versatile and can you know, play any type of game that any we play, whichever week, any any other week, you know, so that I feel like that's what I bring. I was a twenty four year old captain at Buffalo. I feel like I I I got good leadership skills and I was voted back to back hardest worker there as well. Uh That's what I try to to to prove to my teammates that they can trust me because they see the sacrifice that I put in for my team and they see that.
You know, I love this game and I don't take it for granted cause it's brought me so much. So I try to show the guys that you know when times are tough, they can they they can depend on me.
That's your new wide receiver, Gabe Davis here on Happy Hour, presented by the Saint John's River Water Management District, Florida's water It's worth saving, Jeff, I know you're a big fan of Gabe dab Love that guy, what he's been able to do. Big play Gabe over there.
YEA, love him. I mean just listening to him right there. I mean if you don't love that, I mean there's there's something wrong with you. Sure you know he doesn't take anything for granted, how hard he works, and he's the impressive parts. When they signed him, I remember looking at his numbers, and that's kind of the first thing you look at is say, Okay, let me see what he's done. And over the last couple of years he's averaged about seventeen yards a reception average, about seven touchdowns.
He hasn't had a ton of balls, but I think he's going to get more balls than he's gotten in the past here than he has gotten in Buffalo. And so my first thought was, and this also, we're going to take a look at him in the film room coming up on Jaguars social media is Okay, you see that seventeen yards of catch and your first reaction is,
guy must have great speed. So my first thing after looking at his numbers, I said, okay, well if he's got seventeen yards a catch, because I always knew they called him big play game for reason, so I kind of knew that he had a high yards per catch average. And so I said, okay, well, if he's not fast, how is he doing it? Because he only ran like four or five five reportedly coming out of college. So start watching the film on him, and he does so
many different subtle things. He's a great route runner, he's got great size, and he works as a tailoff. When he talks about working hard, scramble rules situation with Josh Allen, his quarterback at Buffalo, him and Josh had a nice single on in scramble rules because he always worked to get open first quarterback and a lot of his big plays came from that situation. And then he used his
size to create separation. Pass interference probably could have been called him a few situations, but he's very smart about it. And then the good ones are so I love the signing. And if somebody had asked me straight up, would you take Gabe Davis or Calvin Ridley? I'm taking Gabe Davis.
Is it just the separation? Is it those little intangibles that you feel like he's bringing that with the team didn't have before that makes you say that.
Calvin Ridley in a lot of ways to me was like a Christian Kirk.
Right, but wasn't used that way necessarily.
Right.
Yeah, And so.
Okay, we got a guy that moves like that that's more of a slot player, which is which Calvin and Christian are. You don't need that two of those guys. I mean, if they're great, okay, that's fine, But I don't think Calvin really is the level of Christian Kirk for this offense at that position in my opinion. But this offense I think needed somebody that was different. Zay Jones was a very good double move guy that could give this offense a little bit of a vertical element
gave Davis can provide that as well. And he only runs like a four or five five, but he's also a big body. He's six two, two hundred and twenty five pounds. You know, there's a play that I'm going to show that he literally a scramblele situation, he ends up finding an opening and then drags a linebacker ten yards into the end zone. I mean, Calvin really is not going to drag a linebacker into the end zone
from ten yards away. It's just not going to happen. So, I mean, I just I love that signing, and also I love it from the standpoint of it's not what get like fifty million.
Fifty guarantee ninety two over yeah.
Twenty something a year. I mean, you know, and here's the reality, and if you're putting the team together, that has to be a factor indetermining whether a guy is on your team or not, because if it costs you more that position, that means somewhere else you can't spend that money.
It's a game. Many parts to this game that you have to think about, and of course money is the biggest factor with a lot of this stuff. Also on offense, we should continue to kind of talk about some of these free agents. Devin Duvernet is going to be their new kick return guy, which means Agnew will most likely be moving on to it.
Yeah, his contract has expired, So when you sign a guy like that, that means Agnews it's time.
For him to move on literally, and just is this like carbon copy situation. They feel like it's a little bit of an upgrade.
Just I mean, I don't want to say an upgrade, because I mean, Jamal Agnew has been one of the best return guys in the league and provided this football team with a ton of sparks and a ton of big plays. But I think he's a really good player that has great return ability, but then also the ability to have a role in the offense probably more of a of a wide receiver role than what Jamal Jamal's kind of what's the right word. He's kind of had a specialty role in the offense.
Yeah, a certain plays he was utilized for or not.
Right, So I think Duven is going to be a fun player. Another pick, by the way, that's going to give the Baltimore Ravens a compensatory pick with Darby as.
Darby two both of those guys.
We're just actually talking about that in the break, and I think the Baltimore Ravens are lined up with Patrick Queen and Duvernet and Darby to get a total of like four compensatory picks. That's where you want to get at some point, what.
Do you make of the mac Jones trade situation.
I know it's I think it's I think I love it. Here, here's a couple of reasons why I love it. First and foremost, he's a Jacksonville kid. Okay, he went to Bowls Okay, ended up going to Alabama, which is not local. But he's a local guy. He had a tough couple years, and I think it will be good for Trevor. I think it'll be good for the backup quarterback situation here in Jacksonville. And so you gave up his sixth round
pick for him for mac Jones. Okay. There's still a lot of teams around the league that still have and refer back to their college when he was coming out, the college evaluation of him, and so if he does become available to them, they're going to look back at that and say, yeah, we really had him rated highly. We had a grown let's say a first round great on him or a second round grade for the teams that didn't maybe weren't big believers in him. But let's
say that Trevor gets hurt, gets hurt. Now you've got a guy that has a heck of a lot of starting experience, and let's say he plays for four or five games. Okay, first of all, you want a backup quarterback to play well if he plays well in that limited opportunity that he has, and he plays well, and now all of a sudden, you're not looking at getting a six round pick in return. You look at number
one getting a compensatory pick. But then you're also looking at an opportunity of tagging and trading a guy you know, for example, Rob Johnson years ago, and this is back in the early Jaguars history. Rob Johnson played in the limited amount of games when Mark Burnell got hurt, played very well. They ended up trading Rob Johnson to the Buffalo Bills and they got the ninth overall pick in the draft, which resulted in getting Fred Taylor. Pretty good
return that did. Okay, Yeah, the sixth round pick is minimal for the risk that it could end up rewarding you with down the road, as not only as him as a player for your organization, but also maybe something more as a possibility as well.
You guys, I came from New England originally before it came, so I saw some of what Mack dealt with up there, and it was a tough situation, obviously coming in a year and half after Tom Brady was there, So that's not great. And they didn't set up they didn't set him up. They haven't been a good team for a while. They had a defensive coordinator as his offensive coordinator.
Yeah, what the hell, what are you doing?
So, I mean part of it Bill Belichick.
I mean, you wouldn't think that Bill Belichick would handle a situation like that, one of the greatest coaches of all time. To have a defensive coach take over his offensive coordinator, to not have a declared offensive coordinator for a period of time wasn't the best handling of that situation at all.
To me, that's the epitome of one of those where you have a rookie that isn't a bad situation and then the confidence is gone and then there's just nothing you can do to get it back at that point. So I find it intriguing that. I'm sure part of what Doug Peterson finds intriguing, having been a quarterback himself, is thinking I can help with this situation. I'm sure he's got to be thinking that bring him into a better environment, a good quarterback room. Ma's not coming in
to save the day. He knows, he knows what he's coming in. He knows his role here, so that can all benefit him to be able to be like, hey, maybe I can come in if Trevor miss is a game or two. The season's not automatically over right, You're not petrified running him out there several weeks in a row where Trevor has been hurt, playing on no practice
time because you think you need him to play. If you have a serviceable, you know, backup Mac Jones that can win you a game or two that changes the season.
Well, and CJ is going to compete, it's going to be a sure Yeah. And did I ever tell you the story about the first time I ever saw Mac Jones play football?
No is in high school or is this before that high school?
Okay, so we were I was at the Bulls game and sitting in the bleachers because my son was going to Bulls. And I'm sitting next to buddy mind Chris Kirby, and Chris and I are, you know, just sitting there watching a football game. We're chatting, you know, about different things, and all of a sudden, you see Bulls start throwing the football, and I went, wow, that kid can really throw the football, which you know, if you've watched Bulls football for years under Quirky Rogers, is all they ever
did was run the football, they didn't throw it. And all of a sudden, they had this kid throwing the ball. Like the kid's pretty good, and Chriss like, oh, yeah, that's that that mac Jones kid. He's going to Alabama. I was like, wow, he's pretty good. So it was first time I ever saw him, and uh, yeah, he was pretty good at that school.
Now all right, I was gonna try to run it back, come home, get some of that home cooking, get that going again.
I mean, look he's got uh he's got hometown fans behind him, and uh he gets home cooking and and then regain the confidence and regain his swagger behind the starter. But you know what, here's the other thing wrong with a little bit of push.
Yeah, you know, everybody competed. We've seen last year alone, how many backups did we see out there?
Like yeah, and I'm not saying that Trevor's gonna get some.
Playing, no, not that, but like they are.
Needed and get everybody gets better.
Maybe doesn't rush back and play on a Thursday game when he heard his knee. You know, those kinds of things that could be helpful.
Well, because last year I felt like that at times that Tever shouldn't maybe not have decided to play in some of those situations, and maybe wasn't the best thing in the world. I don't know.
Yes, hindsight's twenty twenty. We look at it now and it's like very close, but we understood it. So we'll see what if this changes this dynamic a little bit.
And look at Max's rookie year. He was really good. He had a really good rookie year, and then it was kind of tough sledding after that. And again, I think some of the mismanagement of the offensive side of the coaching staff by Belichick. And I'm not one to be quick to criticize Bill Belichick because he's the greatest coach of all time in my opinion, but I don't think he did a great job there.
The offensive side of the ball was definitely an issue the last couple of years for Mac. Let's talk about our offensive line a little bit. We talked a little bit about what Mitch Morris is going to bring hopefully at the center position. Competition for sure, But if he starts there, I don't.
See him losing that competition.
I don't see him losing that competition either, But well it is, we'll call it a competition. As Cleveland got extended, Cam's still here for right now, Walker Little's on the last year of his deal. Where do we see the future of the line going, because that can be, that might be very well be an early draft pick too, could be.
And I think you always consider adding to the people that protect your franchise quarterback. I think that you always have to think about that. It's a group that as a whole they need to get better. And a lot of people I think minimize the re signing of Ezra Cleveland. But I'm here to tell you that was smart business. I was not a fan of last year when you had an injury at left tackle that you put Ezra
Cleveland at left tackle going against Miles Garrett Cleveland. In my opinion, you don't weaken two positions.
By moving someone over.
By moving a guy who has a comfort zone and oh, by the way, he just got to this football team, by moving him out, I thought that they should have put in somebody else and then just gave that somebody else some help and then left Ezra at left guard because you know, I thought Ezra when he was healthy, was their best offensive lineman last year, and so I'm a big fan of them resigning him. And it didn't cost a lot of money.
So especially when you see some of these other offensive lineman contracts that were going out after, you feel a little bit better about risk be done earlier well.
And I think the first reportings of Ezra's contract were a little out of whack to what the reality was. And then I really liked the signing of Mitch Morse to provide competition at center. I mean, clearly, last year the center position did not have the productivity, the production, whatever you want to say, of where it needed to be. And Mitch Morris bring in competition. I think he's going to end up being the starter. He's a veteran guy, He's got a little bit more oomph to him, very
good in past protection and moves really well. You know, that's one of the reasons why, you know, last year when they were struggling a little bit at the center position, and I think Luke can get better. But last year they've struggling at that position. Okay, do they have an option? Well, with this offense that the Jaguars have, the center's got to be able to move. I mean, they have an offensive line the case, center's got to be able to move. Mitch Morris can move, he can snap, and he can pull,
he can get out in space. I mean, so he's a good fit for the scheme and I think he's going to be the eventual starter. And the question will be will will Luke Fortner upgrade his abilities? Will he get stronger? And then the other question is will he provide this team with some positional flexibility? Can he play guard and can he play center? Because you know Tyler Shatley is probably going to be retired or going somewhere else, So can he be fill that Tyler Shatley role for
this football team going forward? I think that's an interesting question.
If we look at some of the young guys on the line. Anton had a great rookie year right tackle.
I think you should be left tackled.
Do you see him at left tackle?
Took the feet, He's got the feet, excellent pass protection last year. I mean, you look at some of the quality of the players that he had to face.
Especially right out of the gate, like.
To do that, and he did a great job. He's got great feet. I think he's going to get bigger. And remember, let's not forget he played with a a hurt shoulder all.
Year from training camp on you and.
Was wearing what appeared to be like a shoulder harness, which indicates you know, something's not right. And he doesn't have all his strength there in that and it was his outside arm, his right tackle to right shoulder. But I think he's a natural left tackle. Just his feet are just so good. He's one of those guys that you could put at left tackle against some of the premium pass rushers and have total confidence that you're not
going to need to help him. And then okay, you figure out what you're gonna do it, right, Okay, you've got some options there, and uh Cam at right tackle, Walker Little at right tackle, draft pick up right.
Tackle draft pick question mark, Yeah.
Yeah, you got you got some somebody.
In the mix. All right, stay with us here on Jaguars Happy Hour. We're wrapping things up soon, but first we're gonna do some Microsoft Social media questions. Have some answers for you, So stay with us here on Jaguars Happy Hour. Yeah, my mom's coming to pick me up in about thirty minutes.
It's kind of nice when your mom can pick you up from work.
So but it'll be good.
I think, Like I said, I'm just looking forward to meeting the guys and.
Every mom driving carpool again. Mac Jones got picked up by his mom on press day last week, which is for him, perfect for him. Thank You're Unhappy Hour, Kay. Nannie Stevens feeling for JP. Jeff Logoman is with me. We talked a lot about some of these free agents, some of these news faces coming in filling some needs, which is great, and also just bringing competition which we haven't seen at certain positions. So that's good too.
Yeah, and you know the kicker Joey Sly being brought in, and I think that's just the beginning for that position.
Sure there's more to come.
Yeah, I think there's more to come, and whether that's in free agency or whether that's through a draft picker draft. I know in the last couple of years they had their eyes on a couple ofkickers that ended up getting drafted, but they ended up missing out because the player that they coveted ended up getting picked before their opportunity came.
So every position in the perfect world, you would like to have the holes plugged and then go into free agency or go into the draft and then be able to get best available player, and then some of the positions that may you don't end up getting what you wanted. Free agency is not over, you know, free agency is still going on, and then the price tach continues to
drop as free agency wears on. So then you start to get some opportunities at players that are bargaining I don't want to say bargain basement price, but on a much more affordable deals.
We love a discount, we love a sale abolutely.
And those are in a lot of time. Those there are some players that fall into that category at that time that are good players, but they just didn't get the long term contract that they wanted. So now you're talking about getting a player who's highly motivated, who wants a one year, prove it deal, And I don't think there's anything better than having a player on a one year proven deal because you're going to.
Get his best, absolute best, because they want that money.
Yeah, and that's when you get it. I mean you get those guys a lot of times in that window, which is after the draft.
Can't blame them for that. Let's go into some of our social media questions powered by Microsoft. We got some viewers here, Jeff. We got Michael from Orange Park first, who says Calvin Ridley says he loves the Jaguars and he wants to come back, but that he signs for an extra twelve million dollars. Where is the loyalty there? I think it's a guaranteed money. It would be the problem, right, I mean, look, you can have half of it guaranteed.
Calvin Ridley approaches it is you should and that it's a business. I mean, at the end of the day, the team is running a business to win football games and manage their cap and for the player, you're running one person business. And so I don't fault Calvin Ridley for saying all the right things and then leaving to go with the Tennessee Titans. I mean, it's just that's business.
I'll never forget when Reggie White had the opportunity to leave the Philadelphia Eagles and arguably one of the greatest players ever and had an opportunity to go play for whoever he wanted to go play for, and he was on a tour and chose the Green Bay Packers, And Reggie said that, you know, he prayed hard about it and he felt that God was guiding him in the
direction of the Green Bay Packers, which is great. And as players, you know, because I was playing at the time, we all said, yeah, it was in God, we trust, yes, which is on the dollar bill, you know, and you know, and that's that's nothing wrong with that, you know there and was certain players, Okay, if the money's close, okay, then you can decide, Okay, look, I like the other things better that go along with choosing a club that maybe not be at the top of the money, but
the money's got to be close to get to start to weigh in those other things that could factor in.
Yes, money's number one, and that was a huge deal, So that makes sense in terms of that. Our second fan question is going to be from Eric from Saint Augustine. He says free agency is over in his mind, at least it's round one now. Jaguars are on the clock at seventeen. Who you got what position is the biggest need? I know we've talked about a couple of different things, But what's the biggest need.
Well, as I told you, I'm not going to draft for me, but if I had to draft for need, I mean, right now, I'm gonna draft a Yeah. I mean because there's a there's definitely a hole at that with Darius Williams being gone and in the National Football League, you really need three. So you got Darby, you got Tyson Campbell, And is Darby a premium player? I mean, I don't know if he's a premium player, but he's
a solid player. So you need to find you need to find somebody that has the ability to play some man coverage against a premium player. I think Tyson's a really good player, but I wouldn't say that Tyson's a premium player and playing man coverage, I think he's a good player. I think he's more suited to play in zone. But yeah, I mean corner. If I had to say right now, based on need.
Yep young Man's game, So I think that's definitely a viable option. I've been leaning corner last week or so. I think that's probably the way they're going to go. And then maybe Linement I'm not really sure, Like big guys. I know Trent balk likes to get the large, tall, physicals vestman so that.
There's a tackle. If there's a tackle there, that gives you a real, really physical player that can take your offensive line to a different level in physicality. That also may give you some flexibility to maybe play that guard for a year. Then I think you got to consider that. Probably wouldn't be a big fan of drafting wide receiver in round one, just because I like some of the
wide receivers that we currently have. But then again, if Justin Jefferson is on there and available and you're on the clock, you can't turn that down.
Is this a deep enough draft where everybody says it's a really good wide receiver draft. Could you get someone later in the fourth that's serviceable or is it like where do you see that? Because they don't have that third anymore that they lost from Calvin, So it's kind of the first two and then a little bit of time until they have another pick. Is identifying that's going to be hard? Is that possible a later pick?
That's the one thing to bring up the whole Okay, And I was hoping in that last year when they had all of those picks last year that they will be able to trade some of them to move to this year, but they weren't.
Able to do that unctually. They're not They had so many last year now it's kind of like you wish you had a little this year. But we'll see what they can do. We've got a couple more weeks. We're going to dive into this, try to figure out exactly where they're going with the draft, and then they'll probably do something else, but we're gonna look into it nonetheless. Jeff Logerman, Kayanti Stevens filling in for JPJ people. Be back with you guys on Happy Hour next week. Appreciate you joining us.