Perspectives - Jeff Lageman

In this episode of Perspectives, Brian Sexton sits down with former Jaguars defensive lineman, Jeff Lageman.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Jeff Logoman didn't need Jacksonville. Tom Coughlin, though, needed a
pass rusher, and the free agent from New York was
the best in class. He became the jaguars first marquee
free agent and would go on to become one of
the most popular players on the field and for the
last twenty five years in the city that has become
his home. This his perspectives the story of the jaguars

(00:29):
first twenty five years, as told by the people who
built the franchise from the ground up. This is Jeff Logoman,
long a businessman who happened to be a football player.
Logoman was well versed in the business of the NFL.
He knew well how a pair of expansion teams could
expand the market for his services, and he considered both

(00:50):
Carolina and Jacksonville. The businessman, though, was interested in having
fun after six losing years in New York and let
the football player make the decision. Tom is not casual.
He's behind his desk. This is kind of formal. That's
kind of how he likes to have him and so
shake hands and I sit down at this small little chair.

(01:10):
I think that probably has the legs cut off just
so he can look down on you a little bit.
And uh, And we had a we had a heart
to heart conversation. He asked me what I was looking
for in free agency and and what I wanted to
to get in free agency, and and I said, look, obviously, contractually,
we want to get taken care of financial. I said,
that's obviously first and foremost. And I said then after that,

(01:32):
I said, then it's a matter of of one thing.
And I said, that's winning. And I looked at him,
and I wanted to have an answer about how soon
could we win and and when I when I kind
of took that approach with it, he he was a
little slow to react. Uh, but then he came back

(01:53):
with a great answer. He said, look, we have we're
gonna have some tools, the multiple draft picks that we're
gonna have in each down, we're gonna have free agency,
we already had the expansion draft. We're gonna have the
ability to get better quick. And he had to sell
me on that because you know what, if somebody doesn't
have a plan. Look, it can be fun, and you

(02:13):
can have a lot of fun going on a new
team because an expansion team. But at the end of
the day, somebody's got to have a vision, and in
that brief conversation that we had, I felt that he
had vision, and uh, it's kind of you gotta have faith,
right and some things in your life, and and I
had faith in that guy. I had faith in Tom Coughlin.
And his eyes were described to me long before I

(02:38):
ever met him, and that his eyes were very piercing
and can be very intimidating. And Uh, to me, I
thought they were very confident and also accomplished, and I
had a lot of confidence in them to those around
the jab War since that inaugural season seemed like a
blur then and it's gotten fogg year through the years,

(03:00):
but not to log in it. So you got you
have to focus on nine because nine ninety nine doesn't
happen without ninety five. Because in nineteen without the precedent,
and even though you have a brief history, but without
the precedent that you established with the toughness level and
expectation level, then the ensuing years have no expectation. And

(03:24):
I think the nine season was so important in so
many different ways because it did it. It established the
foundation in which this franchise was gonna run on for
the ensuing years, and so you had to make certain sacrifices.
In ninety five, for example, I'll never forget and practice
during an O t A one day, you had a

(03:46):
fight and it was Thomas Lnsky and Ferrek Collins. And
and when Ferrek Collins he grabs Thomas Linsky's helmet and
he throws it across the field, has a kind of
a sign of toughness or frustration or would ever it was.
And Tom Coughlin walks over to Ferrek Collins tells him
to go pick the helmet up, and Ferrik he refuses

(04:08):
and asked him again. He refused again, and so Tom
just kind of let it pass. And then I'll never forget.
After practice, you know, the defensive line fare Colins, defensive lineman,
we get together to a little breakdown with John P's,
our defensive line coach, and then we start to walk
off the field from south of the stadium, which is
where the practice fields used to be. And I'll never
forget it. Ferrek Colins is walking in front of me,

(04:30):
and I see Tom Coughlin walk up to him and
literally start walking alongside him, reach down and grabs his
helmet and says something to him and that was it
for Ferrek Colins. He was gone that day. But that's
the sacrifice that you had to to make of cutting
what was gonna be a really good football player. He
might have been our best defensive tackle that we had
on the roster, but it didn't matter. It was more

(04:51):
important to establish that there's one boss with a football team,
that's Tom Coughlin, and you either do it his way
or you're not gonna be here. And that was a
lesson that everybody saw on that football team. And that's
so from nine nine, people knew that you do not
defy Tom Coughlin otherwise it's gonna cost you your job

(05:12):
and it's also gonna cost you your teammate, your teammates
performance at the end of the day. And that's those
are the things that had to be established in nine
and they were certainly established in a very firm manner.
Nineteen ninety six started on the right foot but never
could find its balance. Mark Brunell's five interception game in St.
Louis was followed by Dave Thomas's gruesome leg injury in

(05:34):
Cincinnati a few weeks later, and in mid November, Andre
Risen was dismissed after a horrendous game in Pittsburgh. It
seemed as if there was nowhere to go but down.
A lot of people point to a couple different things
in nineteen ninety six is the turning point, because there's
a lot of things that happened in nine and a
lot of people don't know about. I mean, first of all,
people know about the donuts. What Tom was gonna come

(05:55):
in and hang out in the locker room and eat
donuts with people, and and then he wasn't gonna be
terrible Tom anymore, and he was gonna start to build
a nice relationship with the players, and then they would
be all seen Kumbayan win football games together. That's a
bunch of bullshit. The head coach coming in and having donuts.
When he came in, the donuts guys scattered. It was

(06:16):
it was like you turned the lights on in the
roaches scatter because nobody, nobody wanted to sit down and
have a doughnut with Coughlin. There was very few that did.
It was a couple of the veteran guys that actually
sat there and did have a donut with Couflin, And
of course one of them was Jerkovic, who was one
of the most sociable players you would ever meet in
your life. I had a donut with Tom, you know,
but it was veteran guys. But the rest of the
guys they were gone. So was that the turning point? No?

(06:38):
Was it the cutting of Andre Risen who was uh?
Then their stories about Andre Risen holy Cow before he
got cut, that were some of the most memorable stories
that we have. When I say we the guys that
were on that early Jaguars football team where night before
a game in New England from on the back of

(06:59):
the US and and Andrea was in a different state
of mind than some of the other folks and so
pretty interesting stories there. But was it when they cut
Andrea Rising that turned the franchise around? No, Well, there
was also something that was going on because the owner
of Wayne Weaver was calling players into his office to
find out what was going on with this team. And

(07:20):
it wasn't like Tom Couflin approved of Wayne Weaver calling
players into his office. This was Wayne Weaver legitimately worried
did I have the right man to lead this organization
going forward? He called me in his office, He called
other key veterans into his office and wanted to know
what was going on and what needed to change for
us to win. And I remember my conversation with Wayne

(07:42):
very well, and he asked me what I thought, and
I said, look, I said, we just need to focus
on one thing, and that's doing our own jobs. And said,
we need to stop worrying about Tom Coughlin, the terrible Tom,
and he's not treating us right and he's being too
hard on us and all this other stuff. And and
I thought that was important to say that to Wayne.
And I also think it was important to share that
message with the players because I was a captain and
I show I shared that message with the players because

(08:04):
a lot of the players wanted to tell Wayne that,
you know, they wanted to see Tom gone. And I said,
it's not about Tom, it's about us. It's about us.
This is our football team. This isn't Tom Coughlin's football team.
He's part of our team, but it's not his team.
It's our team. And I think that that message was
was important to be said. And I probably wasn't the
only one that was saying that. I think other guys

(08:26):
were saying it as well. But I think you combine
all of those things together. Andre Rising getting cut, did
Tom maybe work on certain relationship better than he had
in the past. Sure did the development of players like
Jimmy Smith and Mark Burnell and Keny McCardell, and stopped
turning the dagon ball over, start playing better defense, start

(08:49):
playing position football with special teams. I mean, all those
things factored in, but you can't point to it and
say it was just this one thing. It was just
a compilation of things. And also some damn good for
Chin as well. And overtime winning Baltimore, though, took the
Jaguars in a different direction. Four and seven became eight
and seven, and what seemed implausible in early December, if

(09:11):
not entirely impossible in early November, was improbably within their grasp.
I think the great thing about where we were at
that point at four and seven was there was no pressure,
There was no expectation. All we were was a second
year expansion franchise. Carolina Panthers were doing pretty good, so
you always have a little bit of that comparison going on,
so you always want to be able to win that comparison.

(09:34):
But we didn't have a lot of expectations, so I
think it allowed a lot of guys just to continue
to develop, continue to work, continue to get better. And
we weren't thinking playoffs in ninety six. We're thinking, let's
win a game. Let's let's try to win one game.
And so when you when you're focused and you hear
so many coaches use that term one game at a time,
one game at a time, you know, well, we're just

(09:55):
you know, we're looking at the opponent this week and
nobody else. That really means something. And there's legitimacy to
why people say that, because that's what we were doing.
In We were just worried about that week and trying
to win that week. But even even to a a
more a smaller level than that, we were just trying

(10:17):
to get better in each individual practice and also trying
to get better during the week to where we could
be fresher on game day. And I think that was
a big part of it, because Coughlin had very demanding practices,
which was expected. He wanted to weed out the week,
but then he backed off in practice a little bit,
and it also allowed us to be fresher for Sunday,

(10:37):
and I think that was a big part of it.
So all of those things combined allowed us to be
worry free, anxiety free one game at a time, and
then we started to get better. And then all of
a sudden, you look up and you're like, wait a minute,
you know, And we didn't really want to talk about
it because we were sitting there talking about different combinations
about how maybe we could get into the playoffs, but
nobody wanted to talk about it was almost taboo. And

(11:00):
the next thing you know, here we're getting ready to
face Atlanta and it's like, guys, uh, if we win
as we go to the playoffs, and that put the
pressure back on it. We didn't play very well against
the Atlanta Falcons. I mean, it was probably the as
well as we were playing leading up to that. It
was probably one of the most poorly played games that
we did as a football team in because we were

(11:21):
so tense and we were anxiety field because of the
pressure of needing to win to get to the playoffs,
and obviously wanted to play very well in a big game.
I remember I wanted to play well, and I probably
didn't play my best game. But at the end of
that game, here if the Falcons are driving trying to
do everything and in my abilities to stop the Falcons,

(11:46):
and then they're bringing out Morton Anderson for this field goal.
And I'll never forget I wasn't on field goal block.
Wasn't on that team for what reason. I don't know why.
I'm six ft six and got length, so does Clyde Simmons.
Clyde Simmols out there, and Clyde Simmons has been known
to be a great field goal block guy and and
had numerous of him in his career. Paul phrase was

(12:08):
actually the guy that came in for me on field
goal block. So here we are freezing Morton Anders or
whatever was I think we called a time out and
I go to Larry Pasquality, our special team's coordinator, and
I told Larry, I said, I'm not coming off the field.
And I said, you better. You better tell Paul Frays
did not come in. He says what I said, I'm
not leaving the field. I said, I am gonna be
on that field. And anyway, I had absolutely no impact

(12:30):
on that play whatsoever. I get cut blocked by the
offensive lineman. And so if you look at the picture
of Morton's miss there, I am on the ground as
the ball is sailing up, but he missed it, and
and it was a magical moment, but it was I
shouldn't even have been on the field at that play,
and maybe Paul Fras would have blocked it if they
didn't tell Pasquality that I'm staying on the field. Jeff,

(12:51):
who rarely tasted victory in New York, was suddenly a
connois sewer after five consecutive victories, despite never having played
in the postseason. He understood anything was possible for this
team that was playing like they belonged, even if the
rest of the league thought they were an outlier. It's
hard to be the playoff momentum that we had because

(13:12):
of the miracle of the win at home against the
Atlanta Falcons propelled us to Buffalo, and I had a
lot of confidence against the Buffalo Bills because you knew
that the heyday of the Buffalo Bills, who I had
faced so many different times when I was with the
New York Jets, their heyday was gone and they were
trying to hang on with a couple of key players

(13:33):
Jim Kelly and obviously Bruce Smith. Both of them are
Hall of famers and and rightly so, great players. But
I just felt really good about our chance against them.
I felt good about where our offense was, felt really
good about our defense against what I've considered to be
an offense that wasn't quite what it used to be

(13:54):
in their heyday in Buffalo. So we had confidence, and
boy we had I think that the two guys that
really stood out in my mind, or stand out in
my mind in that game the trone means who is
an absolute beast against Buffalo and Clyde Simmons with a
huge play against Jim Kelly, and uh boy, what a

(14:17):
what a moment, what a special moment, and Clyde making
up play and and that was just such a fun
game because to go back to where we were at
when we were four and seven, we had no pressure,
we had no expectation. Well, we go to the playoffs,
there's no pressure, there's no expectation. So here we are
again playing anxiety free football, having a good time, having

(14:41):
probably no expectation or no realistic, realistic expectation that we're
going to be in the playoffs. N maybe n but
certainly not ninety six. We beat Buffalo like a cool
and then now we're going to Denver to face the
team I think that they had one win all season
long at the number one seed. Nobody was gonna stop
John Elway and Bill Romanowski and Terrell Davis, and he's great.

(15:06):
Nobody was gonna stop the Denver Broncos of that day.
And all we did was show up. And when we
showed up, we woke up on game day morning, and
we read the newspaper and there's a good article in
the newspaper to get some more fuel in the fire,
so to speak, from what he page calling us the
Jaguards and how does how does how does some team

(15:27):
name the Jaguards expect to beat the vaunt of Denver Broncos.
And he starts making fun of certain players that are
on our roster. And I went up to every player
that was in that article. I said, hey, did you
read this? Do you read this? You read this, You
read this, You better read it. If you hadn't read it,
here you go. I wanted to get guys fired up.
And then we showed up out there. And then while
Mark Brownell in that game, Jimmy Smith in that game, defensively,

(15:49):
i'd like to say that we played great. I think
we played okay, But maybe that was a day of
just offensive football, just being dominant in the magic of
Mark Bronell, the magic of of Jimmy Smith. And it
wasn't even so much like Natron means from the previous week,
But boy, our offense was special in that. And when
Mark Brunell could make things happen with his legs, I

(16:11):
mean we we were as dangerous of the offensive football
team as there was in the league. The way we
were playing that day with Mark Brennell at coldback. The
sun was stretching over the Rocky mountains, casting splashes of
fading light over Mile Heigh Stadium as Logovan walked towards
the visitors locker room after that win, the a f

(16:32):
C Championship game was in their winshield, but the man
who had never played in the playoff game and had
now never lost a playoff game wanted to reflect through
the rear view mirror before boarding the flight for home.
One of the most unique things about that when in
Denver was you you rewind all the way back to
the preseason and here we are going to Denver to

(16:54):
play in a preseason football game, and then all of
a sudden whisper start that we had just signed Clyde Simmons, well,
Corey Mayfield. Unfortunately, the defensive tackle gets sent home. The
morning of the preseason game against the Denver Broncos, Clyde

(17:14):
Simmons is flown into Denver. He's told he's not gonna play.
They get him outfitted into the uniform, shoulder pads, cleats,
nothing that he's ever worn before. And we go out
there in the first half and and we didn't play
very well in the preseason. This is preseason. Tom Coughlin
comes back into that locker room in his irate I

(17:35):
mean he is. He is chewing heads off at a
ferocious rate. And he comes in and he and everybody's
like taking a knee in the middle of the locker
room or sitting around on chairs or whatever. And here's
this gatorade table with cups filled with gatorade and water,
and Coughland comes in and swings his arm through the

(17:57):
cups and they just literally fly up into the air
and right into the face of Clyde Simmons and me.
And then when Coughlin turns his attention to a different direction,
Clyde looks at me, gets my attention, He goes, is
it like this all the time and I just shook

(18:17):
my yes. His eyes were so big. And then you
fast forward to the playoffs we just won in Denver,
and so it's amazing how things had changed from the
preseason of ninety six to the postseason of ninety six

(18:38):
with the Jaguars football team that had no expectations. And
then coming home was incredible. And I think it was
incredible more so the win against Buffalo because what happened
was totally unplanned. Those the road from the airport to

(18:58):
because back then there was no short cut that everybody
takes now back to so it was a long tunnel road.
And there's people standing alongside the road, parked alongside the
road in the backup pickups, drinking beer, you know, hooting
and hollering, and then the buses are crawling along heading
through this literally like a tunnel of people and fans

(19:22):
heading back to the stadium. So to me, that was
so much more special, but as special as the flyover
of the stadium coming back from Denver, just because it
was unplanned and some of the unplanned things and and
and here I was thinking to myself, this is the
fun and excitement I was expecting when I came here,

(19:43):
as a free agent, and then to beat Denver and
then to do a fly over over the stadium and literally,
I don't know how many feet we were above the stadium,
but we weren't a lot because I could identify people
individual people in the stadium. And it was not quite
to the level of some of the great flyers that

(20:03):
we've had in Jacksonville Jaguar's history, but it was pretty cool.
And we actually stopped the card game that we were
playing in the back of the plane to look out
into the stadium because it was pretty dagon cool. Now,
I don't know if there's ever been a seven twenty
seven or a seven forty seven, whatever it was that
we were flying in back then that's ever done a
flyover of an NFL stadium at that level. Before he

(20:28):
was ready for more, much more, But after just one
more season, his pro football career was complete. Arguably the
best shape I've ever been into my life, and I
didn't know if this was gonna be. It was last
year of my contract, and I hadn't I had no
desire to go anywhere else, but I didn't know if
anywhere else was going to be in a retirement, so

(20:49):
I was kind of unsure. I was thinking that it
was gonna be my last year, and I wanted I
wanted it to be that. If it was my last year,
I wanted it to be my best year. So I
was in great shape, uh probably as lean and as
strong as I've ever been injury free coming into the season,
which couldn't be said for many other years playing professional football.
So I was very excited and go to Chicago looking

(21:14):
forward to it. It's not a hot weather opening day
place against the Chicago Bears, and Edgar Bennett the running back.
You know, it's good back and I think he's a
local guy, so I was looking forward to facing him.
And I'll never forget to play. Was the fourth defensive
play of the game. And it's a play away and
I'm the right defensive end and I'm trailing down the

(21:35):
line of scrimmage and I'm supposed to play backside for
any cutbacks, reverse or anything like that, and also to
pursue Edgar Bennett. And I'm so fired up, so anxious
that I take a little bit too tired of an angle.
And when I do, Edgar Bennett decides to plant his
foot and then cut back and try to bounce outside
of me. So when he does, I'm I've got two more,
much too much momentum going. I plant my foot and

(21:57):
I dive up and out and then throw my arm
out to try to trip him up. And that high
knee kick that he had, which kind of like Roger kraigish,
he kicks my arm, and my arm pops and and
there goes Edgar Bennett. I didn't make the tackle, and
there he goes, and I'm on the ground holding my arm,
and never forget. The doctor comes out and he looks

(22:19):
at me and he says what happened? And I had
already been looking at my arm for a while, and
I said, well, I tore my bicep ten and it's
rolled up in my arm. I said, also spraying this
ligament right here. And he goes, well, I've never seen
the two of them together. I said, well, you're fixing too,
And sure enough did the m r I and had
a distal bicep tendant tear, which is the bicep tenant
and out of your elbow and everything rolls up like

(22:40):
a window shade, And had a second third degree strain
of that ligament down on my elbow and was going
to require surgery, so and was that going to be
season ending or not. Well, they didn't want to hold
the roster spot for somebody that may or may not
be able to play a play towards the end of
the year. So I went to i R and it
was one of the most frustrated seasons I've ever had

(23:01):
because I just wanted to go out on such a
high note. But for me, that was it was a
It was a a tough career because in that was
my tenth year, and in ten years I had had
a herniated disc in my neck, torn a c O,
had reconstructive surgery, right interior capsule shifting, right right shoulder,
I had dislocated shoulder, had separated shoulders, had multiple broken

(23:25):
fingers and thumbs, had a microfracture in my left knee,
had an umbilical hernia surgery, and so many other injuries
that didn't require surgeries or medical attention. And then, by
the way, I found out after I retired that I
had a complete terror of my pc al on my
left knee and never knew it because I was on
so much medication from a shoulder injury. So it was

(23:48):
time after the bicep tenan was torn and all I
could be was essentially a glorified cheerleader and was certainly
tried to be my best at that. And I was
hoping that we would win at a level that's never
been seen before with this franchise, and we were unable
to do that. And that was probably one of the
most disappointing things, is that I couldn't be part of

(24:10):
making it the best year ever for this franchise. Jeff
left football behind, but as he walked out the door,
he knew the players were in place for a winning tradition. Yeah,
I think I think that my top five guys. I mean,
number one for me is the selling from from the
day that I ran him over and tore his knee

(24:32):
and Steven's point and send him home on Wayne Weaver's
private jet to get fixed back in Jacksonville. But I mean,
he was just a special talent. And to go against
Tony when he was just this pup from USC and
he was so good, so good in practice. I mean,

(24:55):
here I was seventh year guy going against a rookie,
and I remember going, how am I going to beat
this rookie? Great player, great player, ultra competitive, great leadership
qualities and The reason I put in probably at the
top is because no offense to Mark Brunell, but everybody

(25:16):
has different leadership qualities, and a lot of people expect
a quarterback to always be the main leader of an offense.
In the early years of the Jaguars history, Tony Boselli
was the leader without question on offense and not a
slight of any kind to Mark Brunnell. But that was
just the qualities of Mark and Tony, and they were
a good fit together because they each had a different

(25:37):
quality of strength and Tony Tony's leadership was tremendous. Jimmy
Smith I've been a big believer and that guys that
have great success on special teams will ultimately be great
players on on as positional players as well. And Jimmy Smith,
I mean, blocked the punt early in the franchise's history.

(25:58):
And then Jimmy Smith became arguably a Hall of Fame
wide receiver in this league, and he had such a
special relationship with Mark that the two of them could
almost communicate without saying anything and without any type of
body language whatsoever. It was just something in the eye

(26:18):
contact because they had something that was very unique, the
ability to change the play and to throw the go
route whenever they saw it fit, and or many times
that boy, did they ever see it fit. Mark would
throw a beautiful ball, and Jimmy just had this speed
that if you put him on the clock, I don't
think he was that fast, but you put them in

(26:40):
pads and on grass, he was faster than everybody else.
And when the ball was in the air, he had
another gear that nobody else could achieve. Total special player
and it was so fun. Because I think a lot
of the credit to Jimmy being a great player goes
to another one of my great players is Keena Macardell,
because without Keena, I don't think that there's a Jimmy.

(27:01):
I think with without Jimmy, there's always a Keenan. But
I think Keenan gave Jimmy the confidence in the competitive
fire to become the player that he became, because Keenan
was just such an ultimate competitor. But it wasn't just
competition when it came to game day. He taught Jimmy
how to practice, because I don't know if Jimmy knew

(27:23):
how to practice prior to Keenan getting here, because Keenan
practiced like he played Hunter Miles an hour and it
didn't matter if he was nicked up. He showed everybody
what toughness was as a wide receiver. So I mean
those three guys, and unfortunately it's mostly offensive guys, because
here I go to the Fred Taylor who he had.

(27:45):
He had such a special ability to to slow down
and then accelerate faster than anybody. I used to call
it the old Fred Sandford dead leg trick. He just
stutter a little bit and then that defender would gather
himself for a second, and that's all it took. When
the defender squared his feed up just for a second,
that was it. Fred was gone because Fred had speed

(28:08):
like no other and you're talking two eight pounds of speed.
And so I loved watching Fred Taylor. And Mark Brnnell
is a close right there at number five. But I've
got to go to one guy that I've got I've
got great respect for, and that's Tony Brackens, who I
played with and Clyde played with. And when Tony Brackens

(28:31):
came here, I'll never forget the very first practice that
we were in pads. And as a veteran guy, you
always try to you try to raise the younger players
the right way. And so John Peas came to me
and came to Clyde and said, I want you guys
to work with this young man, Tony Brackens, obviously our
second round pick out of Texas. We want we want

(28:51):
him to learn to be a pro like you two are.
So me and Clyde both agreed that we would work
with him. So the first today of pads and I
grabbed Tony and he's gonna be my partner in a
drill and he lines up for me. He's the defender.
I'm the offensive lineman, and so I'm supposed to come
off and you know, be a blocker of him, and
he's gonna give me a pop in my chest and

(29:13):
stand me up and get his feet square and get
good hand position. Well, I come off on this drill
when John p says, hut, and I get hit in
my chest and I literally I can't breathe, and I'm
going I'm trying not to show that I'm that I'm
in obvious discomfort and pain because I don't want to

(29:34):
show this rookie that he's hurt me. So I kind
of turned around and got my face away from to
catch my breath, and then I'll never forget the drill ends,
thank goodness, because he was wearing me out and hurt me.
And so as we're going to the next drill, I'm
jogging next to Clide and say, Clyde, tomorrow, I wants

(29:55):
you to take Tony in that drill. So the next
day Clyde takes Tony in that drill and Clyde's eyes
just like they were on the gatorade cups when Tom
Coughlin knocked all the gatorade and the water into him.
His eyes were huge and he goes, my god, I said, exactly,

(30:15):
my god. The guy strong. But he's such a great athlete.
I'll never forget. When we used to do conditioning drills,
he would run with the running backs and outrun them.
He could catch football's when the quarterback was standing five
ft away from him. And I'm not talking about put
his hands up to just bat it up in the air.
I'm talking the reaction and the cat quickness to catch

(30:37):
a football seven ft away from a quarterback and not
bad at but catch it, and then the ability to
make the big play. I just have such great respect
for him because he is by far one of the
most talented players I've ever played with. He is such
a good person and he's one of the smartest players

(30:58):
that I ever played with. He would be in meetings
and then all of a sudden you'd be tapping him
trying to wake him up because he's taken a nap
and meetings, but he had retention that if you told
him once, that was all you needed to tell him,
because he was so smart. And not only do I
have so much respect for him as a player, but
Tony Brackens when he came in here was driving this

(31:20):
beat up Toyota car that wasn't worth a thousand dollars probably,
And the day he left this franchise and he was
one of the highest I think it was the highest
paid player in the organization's history. When he left here,
he was driving that same car and he saved all

(31:41):
of his money. And I just have so much respect
for him on a personal level, a professional level, and
so many other levels, because he's a good man. He
was ready for more, much more, but after just one
more season, his pro football career was complete. Well, for
first and foremost, I feel incredibly fortunate, blessed to have

(32:04):
been able to be what I've been here in Jacksonville,
and and very few guys have had the opportunity that
I've had, And and I'm thankful every day. I mean
I literally wake up and I say to myself, could
you have written it up any better? And that there's
you always have passions in life, and for me, my

(32:24):
passions have always been family, football, fishing, hunting, farming, and
believing it not people say, farming, what do you mean
by that? Why? When I was a kid, I grew
up all over one of you was a farmer. And
so all of these passions that I that I have
and had, they were all met right here in Jacksonville

(32:46):
and football, Jacksonville Jaguars. Family got incredible family, blessed with
two great kids. Farming, I've got a tree farm in Georgia, fishing, hunting,
can do all of that here in Jacksonville, and to
a degree that can't be seen in a lot of
other places. So, I mean, Jacksonville was just a great fit.
And twenty five years. It's hard to believe that it's

(33:08):
been twenty five years. But then at the same token,
sometimes I wake up in the morning, go, man, it
feels like thirty years the body is just kind of
getting a little bit old. But uh, but it has
been an incredible ride, and I'm not ready for the
ride to end yet. I think one of the most
exciting things for me has been recently when this franchise

(33:31):
hosted a playoff game against the Buffalo Bills, and to
see that sea of white in the stadium that hadn't
been seen since what I call the honeymoon days of
n six, seven and eight. I mean that really took
I think it took a lot of fans back to
those glory days and rekindled a lot of that fire,

(33:52):
that burning fire inside of everybody to be a Jaguar fan.
And for me, it was no different. I mean, relet
the candle, so to speak. And I mean, I just
I love this franchise. I love everything about it. I
love the history. I love the players that have gone
through here that I get to see occasionally, whether it

(34:12):
be in a in a setting in which the Jaguars
are the ones who set it up, or whether it
be just out on the street. I mean, Jacksonville has
been such a great town to a lot of different
former Jaguars, but I think particularly the the early year
Jaguars because we we have a special feeling for Jacksonville,

(34:32):
because I think the people of Jacksonville have a special
feeling towards us too, you know, because that was that
was the honeymoon period, and that, to me, that will
never be replicated, that that special nous of and six
and seven. But that special feeling can be different and
still be special for this franchise going forward. But but

(34:54):
I do I feel so lucky, so fortunate to have
been a are of this franchise from the very beginning,
and there's not a day that goes by without me
going I really am lucky. He left the locker room behind,
but he stayed close to the game. Is a jagged
worst broadcaster, first on television and most prominently on radio.

(35:16):
It isn't the same as putting on a helmet, but
it keeps him close to the franchise he loves. I
think being in the booth it doesn't fulfill everything that
being on the field. There's there's nothing that can fulfill
that the competitive fires that you have. I mean, you're
not competing in the booth, but you're challenged your challenge,

(35:36):
your challenge to have a good broadcast, challenge to execute
your job at a high level. And I take that
challenge very seriously every week. And but it's different. It's
a lot different. And when you're when you're part of
a team, which we have a broadcast team and then
but a football team is fifty three guys that you're bleeding,
you're sweating together, and you're doing it all year long.

(35:59):
It's just a little bit different. But I can tell
you the money mornings I wake up after broadcasting, I
feel a hell of a lot better than I do
after the games that were played. So there's there's positives
to all of that, and that broadcasting can provide a
lot of positive things and and yeah, it keeps you
a part of the game. And I think the one
thing that's a little bit different, I think is a

(36:21):
broadcaster now you develop a lot of great relationships like
you had when you were a player. But I think
the relationships now as a broadcaster, you don't have you
know all the players. You talk to the players, they
know who you are. But is that is that relationship
like it was when you were paying No, not even close.
But you have great relationships with the staff of the organization,

(36:45):
whether it be coaching staff, the personnel, staff, and so
in a way, you're rooting for the team, but you're
rooting for success because of those relationships that you have
with people that you've built over the years, and because
we all know the reality of football and that if

(37:06):
success is not forthcoming, then those relationships will not continue
on as they are right now because you have to
win in this business to be able to continue to
see those persons. So uh, but broadcasting love it. Uh,
can't beat it. But at the same token, here's the

(37:26):
other one. The paychecks aren't nearly as good.