A former Jaguars player now the offensive quality control coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Are good friend d narg Robinson with us, de rob what's up? What's going on, JF. How you been man? It's we're seeing you in this light now, I know, right, it's been a little bit. It's really good to have you on staff this year, and and thanks for taking the time this week to chat with us. You know, it's been an interesting transition
for you. Fifth round pick at the Jaguars in of course, four years with the Jagsons are running back, went around a couple of different teams after that, trying to make your way in the league, ended up in the Alliance of American Football at some point, Right, How difficult were those last couple of years trying to stick it out as a player and then look forward to your future as well. You know, I always had the coaching coaching in my site, you know, all the time, because I
love the game. I always want to stay around it. So I said, what's I'm done. Uh, once I have done eight years, I'm gonna ten years. I want to I want to, you know, get it to coaching. But you know, it happened a little faster than than than I spent it. So it was cool, man, it was cool. Uh.
Penning a F was kind of cool. I kind of like, you know, there's a lot of young guys on the a F team with mean, uh would I would help them coach coach dumb and help them, you know, think like I was thinking, and see what I was saying and the development as a player, and so I was just like, man, look, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. So the running back coach, I was like, Man, you're gonna be a coach one day. The way the way you had the things. He was like, You're gonna
be a coach. So Uh, shout out to him. Man. It's it's difficult though, to get that first gig sometimes. And I believe your first opportunity to coach was in twenty nineteen with the Jacksonville Dolphins. How did that come about? And I know it ended because the program ended, so so it came about crazy crazies on the WA. Man. Uh. One of the guys that uh in the AF he actually was the strip coach. He knew the head coach at JU. He actually gave me UH the JU coach number.
And I reached out to him. I'm like, hey, I'm trying to get it to coach, and I don't know if you got a position open, but I would love to even volunteer, just just to get it to coach, you know, just to get my feedback, feet in the door, internship. Whatever you want me to do, I do it, you know. So I end up meeting up with the coach. I end up coming up there and going to the facility acts them, can I get get be evolved? He said yeah, not without doubt. But he's like, I can't pay you.
So I was like, all right, cool, mat just want to be around the game and just learned I was rehabing my knee. I had to my a c on them to everything on my knee. So I was rehabbing and coaching them, helping out, helping out with them whenever I could, and it was a blessing. Man. When I got into it, I was like, this is a blessing. So thank the coach. Thanks to coach Shills for giving the opportunity to start my career of coaching and being around the guy. So it was kind of good to
be being around football. And you know, the program got shut down. It was so it was a bitter sweet feeling of my first time coaching, you know, it was kind of it was great to be around those kids and see those those smiles, that joy that they had coming up out on Saturdays. And so it was Funk Robinson with US Jaguars offensive Quality control coach. So the program gets disbanded at JU Where are you going next to? Where their plans after that? What was going on in
your head in your career? You just got your first coaching gig. Now it's gone. Now what and how did you come across the Jaguars opportunity? So, man, uh, it's funny. I was I was actually still the coaching with the j j with the Dolphins and uh, you know that the gig they we actually at the end of the season, we was like, all right, we started recruiting. It was time to trying to start recruiting. And half the coaches on the road, I couldn't go recruiting because I was
only you know, intern that I couldn't go recruit. So have the coaches on the on the road trying to go recruit guys, and they give us a call. They sent an email out and tell us that uh you know, come meet meet with us in the morning and uh so we all thinking the coaches like we think we're getting fired. You know, it's over for us. Uh. Never come to find out it's kind of over for all of us. It's over for the for the coaches. For them,
I'm really over for the players. You know a lot of these players can you know, try to find someone to go so, you know, they it was an unfortunate situation for those guys. So I felt for those guys more than anything. And uh, you know those cold players have got scholarship to go other places. Uh. Our quarterback Calvin he ended up going to Hawaii, So I'm happy for him to be able to, you know, continue his career. And now he's on the bigger, bigger platforms, hopefully he
could do the same things he did at JU. So you've landed with the Jaguars as the offensive quality control coach. What are your day to day duties and is there actually a list of those or is it just whenever somebody needs something, You're running around doing a little bit of everything. So every week I break down to break down every game that that we we all the appointments
that we have to face. So every week, I'll if we're facing the team, So every every week I go to every team that we play against, breakdown their defense and break down you know, our office. Put put our office and so I'll plug it in and do that. Get that going. So when the coaches when it's tough for us, look at their that film that have our you know, information is now our players in our from uh, their alignments. So it's kind of cool to do that. And UH back to the question you asked me, how
did I get the gig? So I was. I was actually coaching at JU and then one morning me one day I hit up UH Marcus Poehler and I texted, I'm like, hey, man, how you doing. I'm getting I'm getting into coaching. If you know anybody you know that's interesting in the coach. I'm still coaching, you know, I want to get into coaching. And Uh, I came up, came up to the stadium for for lunch, just to have lunch, and you know some of the I end up seeing you too. I remember that day. I've seen you.
I've seen you. I've seen uh coach Doug, I've seen Dave carl Well, I've seen all the coaches and talk to them, say hi to them. You know, they remember my face and we chatted for a little bit, and you know, at the while, I end up, you know, stay in contact with Doug and staying the contact with MP and uh, I was just telling you if y'all got anybody to know that, you know a job, I'm here. And they end up hit me up and telling me, hey, man, if you entered interested and coach with us, let's do it.
And I was like, that's a no brainer. You know, pretty cool story there to Dart Robinson whether Jaguars offensive quality control coach. You know, you saw this as a player in the NFL. Now you're kind of going the other way coaching or helping coach players in the NFL. Is it what you expected going into it now that you're on the other side of the fence. It's definitely. It's definitely a lot of stuff that you don't see as a player, you know, so like, obviously what I
do is behind the scenes. That's that's cool with me. I don't really you know, I don't want to praise, but you know, you do a lot of stuff that's behind the scenes, and uh, you try to get those guys. They notebooks on time and paper works and all the all the films that you could possibly shoot to them and uh, all the paper like all the all the things that you break down for them to know what's
going on. So you know, it's a lot of stuff that's behind the scenes that you know, a lot of guys when you know, you know you ain't gonna see it on Sunday, but that that's that's the preparation. You know, a lot of people don't ever see what what you do to get to where you're at to have success
on the football field. So you know, now I'm starting to see, you know, what you have to do behind the scenes to help these guys be be great on Sundays, Dear Robinson, with us Vick ten is about to start finally, But I don't know how Michigan is gonna do this year, Deart, I'm sorry to say, uh, man, I think we're gonna be all right. We're gonna be all right this year. I think I think Hardball will have the team going.
We got Joe Milling starting that quarterback and uh, we've got some good talented receivers, so I think they'll do pretty pretty thing. Good man. I think those guys are get it going. And uh, I like the Deefense. The Deefens always show it big. So great stuff. Always good to see you man, great to catch up. And let's get a w this week in l A. Oh yeah, definitely. Man.
We're gonna go to l A and have fun and hopefully we do what we have to do, take care of business, be our best, our best uh team that we could possibly