November 26, 2019 • 32 mins
In this episode of Perspectives, Brian Sexton sits down with former Jacksonville running back, Maurice Jones-Drew.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
The following presentation of the Jaguars Podcast Network is presented
by by star credit. Maurice Jones. Drew stands tall among
former Jaguars, ironic in a way that the five ft
six running back who's slid to the second round the
(00:23):
stick of the two thousand six draft because of his height,
remains to this day not only one of the most
beloved Jaguars, but one of the NFL networks best analysts
and a guy who commands the attention of coaches, players
and fans alike. This is perspective, the inside story of
the jaguars first twenty five seasons told by the people
(00:45):
who built the franchise from the round up. This is
Maurice Jones Drew. There is also irony that the smallest
star player the Jaguars have ever had is also the
biggest champion of the smaller market in the NFL. The
record speaks for itself. Only one playoff season in the
last twelve years, missed opportunities in the draft and free
(01:08):
agency that have magnified struggles on the field, and a
less than full stadium in Jacksonville, combined with an now
annual trip to London that fuels the fires of misinformation
about the city and the fan base and their credentials
as a football town. Maurice works at the NFL Network
and lives in Los Angeles, where he doubles as the
color analyst for the Rams and their radio network. But
(01:28):
it's clear that no matter where he lives and no
matter who signs his check, Mojo is a teal blooded
Jaguar through and through. My connection with this team is
I think it's less about like the team in general,
but it's more about the people who are in the building. Um,
It's more about the people outside the building. It's more
about the city. Uh. Coming here at twenty years old,
(01:50):
you think you know everything. I learned a lot of
lessons here. Um, But it's completely different than any other
place I've ever been to my lightly. I've been to
minnesota've been to Green Bay, I've been too obviously Oakland
was the last year I've been all these places. But
this is a family. This this you know. When I
came here, Wayne Weaver ran this organization, he ran in
(02:10):
like a family. I remember going to the Christmas dinners.
I remember seeing the wives and the players hang out,
and to me, that was that's what football is. It's
about creating relationships. And I remember seeing the security guards
every day who would smile even I mean after some
of the worst losses that we had, people will still
come and say maybe you did a great job, or hey,
you guys can do it like it was. It was
a family. And that's to me, the most important thing
(02:32):
that you can have here. Um, when I when I
am on TV and I'm talking about it, and I'm
not talking from a place where people are like you know,
where other people might have a bad my my situation
here in two thousand twelve was strictly financial, and I
said that in the press conference. It was strictly a
financial move. It was. It had zero to do with
(02:54):
me not liking people. I love the people here. I
always will love the people here, regardless of how how
it ended when I left, or how it was when
I was here. I still love the people in this building.
I love the cooks, I love the janitor, I love
the security guards, I love the people in the streets
that when you say hello after games. I love the kids.
I loved everything about this place because I grew up
(03:14):
here in the way people treated you and then the
way you treated them. Um, that that to me is
the most important thing. And so when people always ask, hey,
like what about jackson Like you know nothing about Jacksonville
because you've never been there. You don't know what it's
like there. You don't know how the people, the people
will give you the shirt off their backs. You know,
Dan Edwards, his daughter, his daughter was our our babysitter
(03:36):
at one point in my life, Like, if I wanted
a date night, I would call his daughter, or I'd
call other players on the team to come watch or
drop our Like you can't do that everywhere else. And
it's not as if you know, you know, and again
I don't know every other relationship, but this wasn't just
one player that would call to come watch my kids.
It'd be multiple players. It wasn't just you know. I
(03:57):
remember walking by uh the uh, the ticket office and
people just having it like, hey, how are you Like
it was a family atmosphere here, and that, to me
is what saved me because again again a kid coming
from Los Angeles having a bunch of money thrown in
his pocket, like I could have made a ton of mistakes,
and I didn't make a ton of mistakes, but the
(04:18):
people here protected me and they allowed me to grow
and be who I was, and and that's the most
important thing. Talking with Maurice, the connection is clearly durable,
nothing contented, and it won't ever end. It's also clear
that his love affair with Jacksonville and it's professional football
team began almost as soon as he put his feet
on the ground. But we did thirteen years ago. Well,
(04:39):
I remember first getting the call and thinking, I'm going
to Florida. I tryed to Miami. All of Florida is
the exact same and so uh so we land, you
get off, you walk on the tarmac. Uh, I get
met by I forget who it was at the time,
but uh picked up and Mercedes weren't on the same
flight because I'm from Francisco, he's from l A. So
(05:01):
we end up meeting here. But getting here, there was
so much potential I saw um And it's funny to
say that at twenty years old, Like I saw a potential.
But like, the people were nice, everyone was excited. Uh.
They were excited to have us here, which is crazy
because we got drafted by a trojan usc trojan. Uh.
(05:21):
But we just wanted to come and play. And at
the end of the day, when I when I first
got here, I was nervous. And so when you're nervous,
you kind of put on extra I was nervous because one,
I'm not from Florida. Uh. Two, I was nervous because
I got drafted in the second round when you had
Fred Taylor here, and I didn't know how he was
going to react to it, because you've heard horror stories.
I actually talked to Aaron Rodgers about his situation, what
(05:43):
Brett Farve and how that wasn't the best early on um.
And then three, just being you know, young kid half
away across the country, out your family. You're just nervous.
And so when I came in, I had to put
on this this persona, this this fake false attitude as
if I'll be fine, I'll be fine, I'll be fine. Um,
and it all went into it all broke down when
(06:05):
the first day of O t a s or Mini camp.
I think we had it first and uh And in May,
the first week of May where I met Fred Taylor
and I was so nervous to meet him because I
don't know how he was going to react. And I
went up to him. I remember going up to him.
I remember sitting in the locker room, not talking to anyone.
You're seeing guys like Marcus Stroud, Big John, Mike Peterson.
They're laughing, having a good time. I could barely understand
(06:27):
what they were saying because I wasn't from the South.
Um but um. I went to talk to Fred and
I walked over to what Before I got to Fred,
excuse me, I saw Greg Jones and I was like,
what am I doing in here? Like this is this
is not a place for me because you're seeing the
size and those type of things. But I walk over
to Fred and I go, hey, Fred, like, I'm Maurice,
Nice to meet you, Like I just want to come
(06:49):
and learn everything that I can from you. And Fred
was like, oh, man, I already saw your highlights. Man,
you're good. Like we're gonna use you in these type
of ways and we're gonna do this, We're gonna do that.
And that really then made me so much more confident
in my abilities because he was like, Hey, this is
what you do well, and these are some things I
saw you struggle with or you need to work on
or you need to improve on. And then literally that
(07:10):
whole offseason we worked on being more patient, We worked on,
you know, all the little things. And so when I
came in here, like especially coming from l A where
it's bright lights, and we were the man and we
were a big team and we did really well. Um
to have a guy who had been so successful in
the NFL to come in and say, Hey, this is
what we're gonna do together, it really helped me out
a ton. And so once I got on the field,
(07:32):
and the one thing I always tell people that Fred
told me that I'll never forget. Um. I think it
was one of the one of the first practice I
struggled in and he was like, dude, like, why why
are you pressing? Like this is like Pop Warner. The
same moves that they have worked in Pop warn they
work here. Trust me. And that was my mindset for
the rest of my career was that this this was
just like Pop Warner youth football, that, um, you go
(07:52):
out there and play the same way, like, trust me,
the little move that you did in Pop Warner is
gonna work. And it worked, and they just kept working
on and on and on and so, Um, that's where
the confidence came from, is practicing against that tough defense,
learning from Fred, learning from Kennedy, pola Um, you know,
being able to be put in certain situations. Um, telling
(08:12):
myself every day like I'm competing with one of the
better running backs in the league. Uh. You know, my
mindset was always trying to come in and be the starter,
but to go in there and learn and compete like that.
The confidence kind of this came out and then that
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that it's your money. All loans up to to approval
insured by n c u A. They put it all
together in two thousand and seven. The golden era of
Jaguars football is generally regarded as the Coughlin years and
it's best team bunch that went fourteen and two. What
the two thousand and seventy may have lacked an overall talent,
(09:20):
it more than made up for with huge personalities that
shape as fun at season and the Jaguars have ever had.
Two thousand and seven was a special year just because
I think it all came together for us as an organization,
as a team that one year. Um, two thousand and six,
we were close, Uh, go to Kansas City, had a
(09:41):
chance to win in Kansas City. If we win in
Kansas City, we make the playoffs and we I think,
I forget what we lost by, but we lost. So
that that kind of that off season. I remember a
lot of the guys we went on a vacase and
they were like, look, this is the year. Everyone go
and work hard. Everyone do what you have to do.
Come back and let's go. Let's go and take this
thing over. Um. So two thousand seven we come back. Uh. Granted,
you talked about we talked about Chris Naoli, we talked
(10:03):
about Vinnie man oh Y, we talked about Brad Measter.
We had a Tony pass shows that year. UM, and
so it was crazy to see Kalif Barnes and left
tackle who doesn't get enough credit for blocking Dwight Freeney
and Robert Mathis by hisself. When we would go on
those games, we would never slide the line. We would
slide the line the other way and he would have
(10:23):
to be one on one with either Dwight Freeney or
Robert Mathis. And so we knew going in that we
had an opportunity. And that year was it was a
little weird because that's the year Byron left, which gets
cut right before the season. UM. And I remember Mike
Peterson UH having a team meeting saying like it doesn't matter,
you know, we can't control that, and that was something
(10:44):
that was really important for us to hear because we
were a young team. Now that I look back at it,
like I think Fred might have been twenty seven, Mike
Peterson might have been twenty six seven ish, and I'm
twenty one UM at the time, so I'm thinking these
guys were like super old, but they're young, you know. UM.
And so to have that leadership from our leaders who say,
(11:05):
we can't control what's going on over there. All we
can do is control our play on the field, and
if we believe that we're a playoff team or a
championship team, will go and show it. And so uh
we start we start running. UM. I would say a
year we played the Falcons where that was the year
Big got in trouble. We played the Falcons, We got
after them pretty good. Um we played, Uh, David Garas
(11:27):
are starting quarterback, We're rolling, David gets hurt. We're going
to Tampa and beat Tampa. And we I think we
threw the ball seven times or eleven times, um, and
we It was funny. I remember going on the field
and I remember them uh talking about being nine on seven,
which is like a run inside run drill, and Uh
we did. We wanted to see if Tampa was ready
for Tampa was a cover two team. They wanted to
play West Coast offense. Did they were they able to
(11:49):
handle smash mouth football? And we went out there and
Quinn Gray as our quarterback and and he threw Uh.
I want to say, one touchdown to Matt Jones. But
other than that, we ran the ball seventeen times in
a row. At one point we were gonna impose our
will and everyone and obviously everyone remembers going into Pittsburgh,
beating Pittsburgh in the regular season, and then once we
(12:09):
got to the playoffs, I never saw the intensity I
now I then understood why the playoffs were the playoffs,
because practice was so intense. I mean, guys were tackling
each other and man, we were hidden and we were
doing everything to make sure that we understood. You know,
during the regular season, some guys would stay here and
you know, hang out, some guys would go places. In
(12:30):
the playoffs, everyone stayed and watch film. Everyone knew what
was at at hand. And so to go into Pittsburgh
and and and then beat them a second time, a
team that was built like we were. Uh, I wanted
to be physical, run the ball, bigger quarterback, Um, all
those things are going there and beat them way we
did in that fashion. Um, it was nice. And then
(12:52):
to be honest, going to New England was even that
week was even crazier. And that I think that's when
I realized, you know, that's when I gained a lot
of respect over the years for New England because I
was so tired that week. I think I was going
to be at like six o'clock every night and so
trying to just get my energy. I've never played into
January before and never been there, so I was doing
(13:13):
everything I could to keep my energy up. Um. I
think everyone else was doing the same thing. Practice were
even more intense. Um, we're going to that game, but
we were rolling. We we had a you know, a
couple of mishaps here, but we had an opportunity to
win the game and it just didn't happen. But that team,
it was so many little things that went on throughout
that year, um, that we overcame. And that's part of
(13:34):
the you know, always tell people, you know, there's a
little luck involved when winning a championship. It's not you
you are a really good team, but there's a little
bit of luck involved. You're healthy, which is one which
we were that year. Um. You you don't, you know,
Mike Vick goes out so we don't have to play
him and against Atlanta, we we have some different other teams.
(13:55):
We knew we were a good team. We lost to
the Colts twice, but we knew we had him beat
in Indian up and we knew we could beat him. Um.
But I mean there were so many little things that
went on, like so many uh a little adverse situations
that we're able to kind of use his motivation to
get better. Um, you know, it made it so special
even til today, Like, um, I would I would anytime
(14:17):
I go to Hawaii, I go hang out with Chris
Naoli and Benny Mana Ya rest his soul, and and
those guys. We would just talk about life, right, we
talked about football. We talk about those times. I remember
being here in two thousand seven, a young kid um
going out and Chris Naoli would like pick me up
from my house to drive me to work because it
meant that much to him, or you know, his his
(14:40):
wife would cook for me. Or I would go and
eat at certain people's houses because I didn't have I
didn't have I wasn't married at the time, I didn't
have when to live. I was living by myself, so
I was eating like Sonic Burger and stuff. But they
knew it was so important that they'd be like, well,
you come over and get a home cooked meal. Right.
Those little things are the things that made that team special.
I had to hang out with Fred and we we
go and watch tape, and we go and do certain
(15:00):
things like we just we just were a complete team
at that point. They came back to Earth in two
thousand eight, and in early two thousand nine, everything changed.
The Jaguars released Fred Taylor and elevated Jones drew to
the role of feature back. It was the opportunity he craved,
but it came at the expense of the teammate he loved.
(15:22):
His relationship with Taylor helped the transition and set the
stage for three incredible years. In two thousand eight, we
we had a championship team, but those adverse situations that
we had in two thousand seven that were able to overcome,
we weren't able to do it because of you know,
the NFL is so different than any other level of
(15:45):
football or other sport because money comes into play, and
so we had some moves there that people couldn't we
couldn't get over, we couldn't overcome, and so we had
a lot of injuries, we had a lot of thing
and it just wasn't a good year for us. Uh Um.
I remember in two thousand and eight being in Lake Tahoks.
I just had my first son and we were going
(16:07):
to Tahoe as a family, and I got a call
from my agent saying like they just released Fred and
I was like, what are you kidding me? And so
I merely text him like hey, man, like is this true?
Like what's going on? He was like yeah, you know, Um,
I appreciate everything, Like you know, if you ever need anything,
call me, and I'm like, I'm going to I'm about
(16:28):
to I'm literally about to leave Lake Tahoe in two
days and I'm going to Miami. So I'll see you
in in like three or four days and we'll talk
about it. Um, and I get down there and again,
you know, I'm I'm supposed to replace him. There's all
these different things that are going on, and yet he
was still willing to be that mentors to me, like
still pushing me when we're training in Miami, still doing
(16:49):
the little things that we had did from the day one.
And so it was it was hard for me to
be able to rationalize or be able to understand that,
you know, like how to how that happens, Like you
just got released and then you're still willing to the
guy that they're putting in your place. You're still willing
to help out. Um. But you know that's what Fred,
(17:10):
That's who Fred was. And so I trained that offseason
understand that I had a high there was expectations set
on me at this point. Right, you got a new
tough contract. Um, Fred's gone. What Fred had did in
the past, right, ten thousand yards, all these big seasons,
like I had to go and be able to either
match that or surpass that. And so that was my
that was my goal, my personal goals, UM, and that's
(17:31):
what I trained for. Uh. Granted, obviously the team goal
is to win a championship and we would play to
do those things. But that that was a time in
my life where I really didn't under I didn't understand,
you know, I felt like we had all we needed
was like one more piece. It was like, just keep Fred,
We'll figure this thing out. We have one more piece.
But the organization wanted to go in different ways, and
(17:53):
it was what it was. But the reason those three
years were those three years that I had after Fred,
was because there was I always knew that he has
set a standard in a bar for running backs and
that I had to to either uphold it or lifted
even higher. And that was to me the most important
thing I can do. Um to do my job to
the best of my ability, no matter if you had
(18:15):
eight or nine guys in the box. You know, I
was sitting meet with the offensive line and Brad Meester
was still here, Benny Man and I was here for
a little bit. Oocha knew Wharry was here. Um, we
had a passials was there for a second. I mean,
we had a bunch of guys that you know, we
ended up drafting Eugene Monroe and Evan Britten, and I was,
you know, as a whole we were trying to at
(18:37):
least I was. I wanted people understand, like the standards
still the standard, right, Like when Fred was here, you
could have put fifteen guys in the box. We were
still gonna run the ball when you know, And it
was because the way offensive line was gonna block it
was the way I was gonna run. It was the
way that David was going to check into the right play,
like everything had to be the same, and so uh
(18:57):
those years going into it, it was all about making
sure that I didn't um, that I did not mess
up what the the running back the running backs of
Jacksonville have set from all the way back from James
Stewart to nature. Means. I was Fred Taylor to myself
and then too when I left, I said the same
thing that the next guy like, you know, like this
(19:19):
is Denard Robinson, Like here you go, like you gotta
make sure that you do it this way because this
is what the standard is and so um, but you
know it was. It was some good times man like,
like I mean, there's so many stories you could talk
about that. I remember um in two thousand and eleven
when we won the Rushing Todd And I say we
because the receivers really were selfless blocking on the outside
(19:40):
like fullbacks, and Greg Jones was here and in our
line and we were seeing nine and ten guys in
the box every week. It was there was no there
like it was. It was just like, hey, this is
what is gonna be. And I laugh now because I
see these guys complaining about having loaded boxes and I'm like, yeah,
that was the everyday thing for us. That was everyday
thing for us. So it's uh, you know, those years
(20:02):
were real special for me. More perspectives following this from
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A A passionate football player, Jones Drew was also a businessman,
(20:48):
and he could see the change was in the air.
After a two thousand ten season which fell short of
the playoffs. It's funny how this, you know, the the
NFL lambscape and landscape can change. Um. I remember again
in two thousand eleven, we're going into the season and
we cut David Garrard the week before the season or
the week of the season, and it was like, oh no,
(21:10):
all right, well we did this last time. This has
a chance to work. The difference was we didn't have
the personalities in the locker room that we had in
two thousand and seven the last time we did it.
So my as a leader on the team and as
one of the older people on the team, it was
my job to corral everyone. So I we had a
team meeting and it was like, look, well it doesn't matter,
(21:31):
we have to go out there and do our job.
And so um that year we drafted Blaying Gabber. We
had the lockout situation. There was so much going on
in this building, right there was there was the rumblings
of the team being sold. There was all type of
stuff going down, and so you're trying to you know, people,
I want to people talk about distractions like that is
(21:52):
the craziest thing I've ever been a part of, because
you don't know if the team is sold, if you're
gonna make it, because now it's it's a different owner
wants to do whatever he wants to do. You don't
know if the team is gonna be moved. Yeah, family
stuff you have to worry about. I mean, there's everything
that goes into that. On top of now, we gotta
play football without our starting quarterback, right and I still
(22:12):
feel to this day if David would have played in
in two thousand and eleven, we probably would't went to
the playoffs and made some noise because we were close
a couple of games. But going back to the season,
you know, Luke McCown uh is our starting quarterback. UH
play really well in the first game when the first
game we go to the Jets and he throws four picks,
(22:32):
And I knew in that situation what was gonna happen.
I already knew, Like if he didn't play well, Blaine
Gabard was coming in and we're gonna play with this
rookie quarterback who still he had the armed talent, but
still didn't understand that the NFL landscape the game of
football because of what he did in high school and college.
He played in the spread offense. So it's a little
bit different. Um. But again, it was one of those
(22:54):
things where I was like, hey, like I I still
have to uphold my end of the bargain to Fred Taylor.
As an organization and as a team, we stopt to
uphold our our ore into the bargain is going out
there and putting our best foot forward. And we did.
We did everything we could. Um. You know, we again
we ran against eight nine in boxes. Um. You know,
(23:15):
we did everything that we had to do to try
to put ourselves in position to win, and we we were,
and we lost a bunch of games by close scores.
So it wasn't like we were getting blown out like
we did against the Jets. UM. But you know, that's
part of it. Like it was, it was just a
lot of outside noise that kept seeping into what we
were trying to do. UM. After at the end of
that year, I remember or towards the end of that year.
(23:35):
I remember, like every day and practice, the offensive linem
be like, how many more yards we need to win
this thing? How many more yards we need to win
this thing. I was like, I don't know, I don't know,
but let's just keep rolling. And I end up either
hurting my hip flex or in like week eleven, and
so I couldn't practice anymore at this point, and the
offensive lineman would be like, yo, you're playing in the
game right, like this is the one thing that we're
(23:57):
gonna do. If we don't do anything else, we're gonna
win this Russian time. I was like, I got you.
I'm gonna playing the game. And I would get here
like five of the morning, get treatment all these different things.
I would try to run some days it wouldn't work. Uh,
really didn't get going until running back to like week
thirteen or fourteen late in the year. And then I
remember the morning of the last game, le Shaw McCoy's
up uh or he was I think he was gonna
(24:19):
be active, but then they decided to make him inactive
and so but we still we had won the rushing
tile the morning of the Coast game, but we wanted
to get the the single season rushing record, and so
I remember warming up to get the day of the
game and pulling my Hamshire and warming up and I
was like, oh, this is crazy, and so I hurry up,
(24:40):
I run in and I go talk to Mike Ryan.
I'm like, you know, I think I either pulled my
Hamshire or a tour it or something, but like, we
need to get this thing fixed because I have to
play um. And only only people that knew were Mike
Ryan and and uh melt Tucker. At the time, there's
only two people that knew. So we get in the game.
I think we might have been like currently around. We
might have been sixty yards a hundred and sixty yards
(25:04):
away or something, which was it was like a tall task,
but we knew we could do it, and I think
we got one sixty nine or something that day. But
the smile on those guys faces on everyone from the receivers,
the offensive linemen to the coaches, that that's what it
was all about. It the end the day was like,
regardless of how bad this season was, we were able
to hang our hat that we're able to win the
rushing title in a season that we had a ton
(25:24):
of things, team being sold, coach being fired, had starting
quarterback cut week one, all these different things going around,
we were still able to salvage something UM and it
was it was awesome. Now it goes from being on
the high of highs too. During the off season. During
that season, we were in the contract talks, uh, possibly
(25:45):
during another extension, UM, so that you know, I could
retire a Jaguar, like be a Jaguar forever. That was
something that was important to me. UM. But like as
we were playing once a team sold, UM, we stopped communicating.
And I think that was the biggest issue that I
had with the front office at that time, was that
(26:07):
there was no communication. UM. So you know, after the season,
I made it clear and I don't think people will
know this, but I made it clear, like I wanted
a new contract. We we had we had I want
to say, we just won the rushing title sixteen hundred yards. Uh.
The year before that it was through and so whatever
in the year before that was thirteen. So it was
(26:28):
that the numbers were there, um, and that we were
facing things that no one ever faced before. And so
I was like, yo, like it's time to start rewarding
us for the things that we're doing, um in these
adverse situations. And so I made it clear that I
wanted a new contractor I wanted an extension, um going
into that going into that off season, which I didn't
(26:48):
think was hard because it wasn't like we had a
ton of money. There was a lot of you know,
there wasn't really many people out there. Um, so uh,
we're I remember my agent going to the combine and
him talking to the front office and the people in
the building, and you know, they kind of like they
never just they tried to make it like the elephant
was the room. Never just wanted to speak on it, like, oh, well,
(27:09):
this guy is doing well, because my agent had a
bunch of other guys on the team, and this guy
is doing well. And I am like, well, you know,
like I know, Maurice has talked to you. Um, he's
really adamant about getting this deal done before it's you know,
it's all said and done. All we got some other
things we gotta do, and you know, we're we're we'll
work on it all right. So, uh, at that point,
(27:29):
they hadn't hired coach Malarkey. They were waiting on hiring
finding a coach, um, I think, and then they hired
coach Malarkey and some different things, and UM, what upset
me more than anything was that they went out and
paid some guys in free agency that had UM I
don't I don't know how to say it, because they
just they just didn't put they the numbers and the
(27:51):
stuff they had done. The production they had had nothing
compared to what I did at that point, and so
that frustrated me. Was like, okay, you can give you know,
the whole adages take care of home first, Like for
some reason, we forgot about that, and so we had
guys in our building that should have been paid, obviously
myself included. UM, but you go out and paid get
these other people all this other money, and then you know,
(28:13):
one guy gets hurt, another guy ends up playing a
little bit. It just it just it didn't. It didn't
feel right to me, and so I told him, I'm like,
you know, I understand the whole argument of honor your contract,
but at the same time, you have to understand where
I'm coming from as well as a players that we're
we're going out there running against. It doesn't matter who
(28:34):
the receiver receivers were else outside. It didn't matter anything,
Like you could have had Randy Moss team when you
played Jacksonville like they still do today. They're gonna load
the box and do their job. And so we didn't
have a lot of communication throughout. There was some you know,
I there's some things that people say like I better
do something or this and that, and if you know
me that that's like the worst thing you can tell
me because I always do the opposite. Um. And so
(28:56):
it just it went from being on the top of
you know, see the rushing title, to the miscommunication, the
not really just telling me as a as a man
or as an adult saying, hey, you know, we're not
gonna redo your deal. I'd rather you just something we're
not gonna do your deal and you have to come
in and give me, give us one more year and
then we'll talk about it instead of just not talking
to me. Period. And it went from that to the holdout. Um.
(29:20):
Finally coming back from the holdout, which you know, was
one of the toughest things I've ever done because at
that point, my my oldest son was just understanding football
and learning football, and every day he would say, I
thought you love football, Like why don't you want to play?
And all these things, and I was trying to explain
to them how it's this is. It's just not it's
not like youth football, high school or college. This is
this is a business, and you know there's a part
(29:40):
in business that that kind of uh takes over a
little bit. Um. But then coming back and and I
actually being in the Russian Leader for a couple of
weeks and then breaking my foot and and it was
crazy because I come back and I'm in great shape,
I'm running, I'm having I'm doing a great you know,
we're we're doing a great job. Even though we weren't winning,
we were we were getting better. And then we go
(30:01):
to Oakland, the team that we should have beaten, um,
and the first play someone just lands on me wrong
on my foot brakes and a half and that was it.
Jones Drew saw the transition from Jack del Rio to
Mike mclarkey in two thousand twelve, and then Mike mlarkey
to Gus Bradley inteen. He transitioned himself from Jacksonville to
(30:24):
Oakland in and then from playing to broadcasting shortly after
that season ended, his body no longer able to withstand
the punishment it dealt out weekly to defenders on his
way to the end zone. He left with eighty one
career touchdowns, the most in Jaguars history, and his sixteen
hundred and six rushing yards in eleven remained the franchise's
(30:44):
single season record at nine and eighty yards from scrimmage
is also the team mark. Along the way, countless memories
were created, from his taking a knee at the Jets
one yard line to set up a field goal and
kill the flock, to that touchdown run against the Patriots
where he seemed bottled up then it floaded from the
pile to his incredible yard day with two eighty yard
(31:04):
touchdown runs in Tennessee. The list goes on and on
and on. Someday in the very near future, he'll be
recognized for his incredible commitment to Jacksonville on and off
the field, and it's another moment he can't wait to
share with his family in Jacksonville. Uh Man being put
in the Ring of Honor would be one of the
(31:25):
top things that uh, you know, it's it's it's hard
to think about. Earlier this month, I was put on
the ballot for the Hall of fame, And I never
would have thought that because at the end of the day,
I played because I loved it. I played because I
was around the right people, and I love the people
I was around. UM. But to get recognized later in
your career for what you did when you're playing is
(31:45):
is one of the best honors you can have, UM.
And to be able to put up next to Fred Taylor,
guy that I you know that I love, Like when
when when when Fred wasn't number one, I was hurt
for him as much as I wanted to be number one,
like it hurt me because I know I saw what
he did every day. Now granted I didn't see Tony
Boselli and what he did every day, but I saw
Fred played through injuries. I saw Fred get up here
(32:08):
in the morning and all the stuff that he did.
And so that was my personal connection with him. To
be able to be up there with with him, Brad Measter,
all these like like it to me, it's like it's
just like it just feels like it. UM. I'm trying
to think of the word, but it's it's not even
accepted or except it's just like gratifying, like all the
hard work we put in together for the guys that
(32:29):
I played with. It came out for something and and
and you know, I know what I mean, lots of
my family I know me and a lot to my
friends that are in this city. Um, and my kids
for sure love it. But uh, I can't wait for
that day to come. And it'll be exciting.
The following presentation of the Jaguars Podcast Network is presented
by by star credit. Maurice Jones. Drew stands tall among
former Jaguars, ironic in a way that the five ft
six running back who's slid to the second round the
(00:23):
stick of the two thousand six draft because of his height,
remains to this day not only one of the most
beloved Jaguars, but one of the NFL networks best analysts
and a guy who commands the attention of coaches, players
and fans alike. This is perspective, the inside story of
the jaguars first twenty five seasons told by the people
(00:45):
who built the franchise from the round up. This is
Maurice Jones Drew. There is also irony that the smallest
star player the Jaguars have ever had is also the
biggest champion of the smaller market in the NFL. The
record speaks for itself. Only one playoff season in the
last twelve years, missed opportunities in the draft and free
(01:08):
agency that have magnified struggles on the field, and a
less than full stadium in Jacksonville, combined with an now
annual trip to London that fuels the fires of misinformation
about the city and the fan base and their credentials
as a football town. Maurice works at the NFL Network
and lives in Los Angeles, where he doubles as the
color analyst for the Rams and their radio network. But
(01:28):
it's clear that no matter where he lives and no
matter who signs his check, Mojo is a teal blooded
Jaguar through and through. My connection with this team is
I think it's less about like the team in general,
but it's more about the people who are in the building. Um,
It's more about the people outside the building. It's more
about the city. Uh. Coming here at twenty years old,
(01:50):
you think you know everything. I learned a lot of
lessons here. Um, But it's completely different than any other
place I've ever been to my lightly. I've been to
minnesota've been to Green Bay, I've been too obviously Oakland
was the last year I've been all these places. But
this is a family. This this you know. When I
came here, Wayne Weaver ran this organization, he ran in
(02:10):
like a family. I remember going to the Christmas dinners.
I remember seeing the wives and the players hang out,
and to me, that was that's what football is. It's
about creating relationships. And I remember seeing the security guards
every day who would smile even I mean after some
of the worst losses that we had, people will still
come and say maybe you did a great job, or hey,
you guys can do it like it was. It was
a family. And that's to me, the most important thing
(02:32):
that you can have here. Um, when I when I
am on TV and I'm talking about it, and I'm
not talking from a place where people are like you know,
where other people might have a bad my my situation
here in two thousand twelve was strictly financial, and I
said that in the press conference. It was strictly a
financial move. It was. It had zero to do with
(02:54):
me not liking people. I love the people here. I
always will love the people here, regardless of how how
it ended when I left, or how it was when
I was here. I still love the people in this building.
I love the cooks, I love the janitor, I love
the security guards, I love the people in the streets
that when you say hello after games. I love the kids.
I loved everything about this place because I grew up
(03:14):
here in the way people treated you and then the
way you treated them. Um, that that to me is
the most important thing. And so when people always ask, hey,
like what about jackson Like you know nothing about Jacksonville
because you've never been there. You don't know what it's
like there. You don't know how the people, the people
will give you the shirt off their backs. You know,
Dan Edwards, his daughter, his daughter was our our babysitter
(03:36):
at one point in my life, Like, if I wanted
a date night, I would call his daughter, or I'd
call other players on the team to come watch or
drop our Like you can't do that everywhere else. And
it's not as if you know, you know, and again
I don't know every other relationship, but this wasn't just
one player that would call to come watch my kids.
It'd be multiple players. It wasn't just you know. I
(03:57):
remember walking by uh the uh, the ticket office and
people just having it like, hey, how are you Like
it was a family atmosphere here, and that, to me
is what saved me because again again a kid coming
from Los Angeles having a bunch of money thrown in
his pocket, like I could have made a ton of mistakes,
and I didn't make a ton of mistakes, but the
(04:18):
people here protected me and they allowed me to grow
and be who I was, and and that's the most
important thing. Talking with Maurice, the connection is clearly durable,
nothing contented, and it won't ever end. It's also clear
that his love affair with Jacksonville and it's professional football
team began almost as soon as he put his feet
on the ground. But we did thirteen years ago. Well,
(04:39):
I remember first getting the call and thinking, I'm going
to Florida. I tryed to Miami. All of Florida is
the exact same and so uh so we land, you
get off, you walk on the tarmac. Uh, I get
met by I forget who it was at the time,
but uh picked up and Mercedes weren't on the same
flight because I'm from Francisco, he's from l A. So
(05:01):
we end up meeting here. But getting here, there was
so much potential I saw um And it's funny to
say that at twenty years old, Like I saw a potential.
But like, the people were nice, everyone was excited. Uh.
They were excited to have us here, which is crazy
because we got drafted by a trojan usc trojan. Uh.
(05:21):
But we just wanted to come and play. And at
the end of the day, when I when I first
got here, I was nervous. And so when you're nervous,
you kind of put on extra I was nervous because one,
I'm not from Florida. Uh. Two, I was nervous because
I got drafted in the second round when you had
Fred Taylor here, and I didn't know how he was
going to react to it, because you've heard horror stories.
I actually talked to Aaron Rodgers about his situation, what
(05:43):
Brett Farve and how that wasn't the best early on um.
And then three, just being you know, young kid half
away across the country, out your family. You're just nervous.
And so when I came in, I had to put
on this this persona, this this fake false attitude as
if I'll be fine, I'll be fine, I'll be fine. Um,
and it all went into it all broke down when
(06:05):
the first day of O t a s or Mini camp.
I think we had it first and uh And in May,
the first week of May where I met Fred Taylor
and I was so nervous to meet him because I
don't know how he was going to react. And I
went up to him. I remember going up to him.
I remember sitting in the locker room, not talking to anyone.
You're seeing guys like Marcus Stroud, Big John, Mike Peterson.
They're laughing, having a good time. I could barely understand
(06:27):
what they were saying because I wasn't from the South.
Um but um. I went to talk to Fred and
I walked over to what Before I got to Fred,
excuse me, I saw Greg Jones and I was like,
what am I doing in here? Like this is this
is not a place for me because you're seeing the
size and those type of things. But I walk over
to Fred and I go, hey, Fred, like, I'm Maurice,
Nice to meet you, Like I just want to come
(06:49):
and learn everything that I can from you. And Fred
was like, oh, man, I already saw your highlights. Man,
you're good. Like we're gonna use you in these type
of ways and we're gonna do this, We're gonna do that.
And that really then made me so much more confident
in my abilities because he was like, Hey, this is
what you do well, and these are some things I
saw you struggle with or you need to work on
or you need to improve on. And then literally that
(07:10):
whole offseason we worked on being more patient, We worked on,
you know, all the little things. And so when I
came in here, like especially coming from l A where
it's bright lights, and we were the man and we
were a big team and we did really well. Um
to have a guy who had been so successful in
the NFL to come in and say, Hey, this is
what we're gonna do together, it really helped me out
a ton. And so once I got on the field,
(07:32):
and the one thing I always tell people that Fred
told me that I'll never forget. Um. I think it
was one of the one of the first practice I
struggled in and he was like, dude, like, why why
are you pressing? Like this is like Pop Warner. The
same moves that they have worked in Pop warn they
work here. Trust me. And that was my mindset for
the rest of my career was that this this was
just like Pop Warner youth football, that, um, you go
(07:52):
out there and play the same way, like, trust me,
the little move that you did in Pop Warner is
gonna work. And it worked, and they just kept working
on and on and on and so, Um, that's where
the confidence came from, is practicing against that tough defense,
learning from Fred, learning from Kennedy, pola Um, you know,
being able to be put in certain situations. Um, telling
(08:12):
myself every day like I'm competing with one of the
better running backs in the league. Uh. You know, my
mindset was always trying to come in and be the starter,
but to go in there and learn and compete like that.
The confidence kind of this came out and then that
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that it's your money. All loans up to to approval
insured by n c u A. They put it all
together in two thousand and seven. The golden era of
Jaguars football is generally regarded as the Coughlin years and
it's best team bunch that went fourteen and two. What
the two thousand and seventy may have lacked an overall talent,
(09:20):
it more than made up for with huge personalities that
shape as fun at season and the Jaguars have ever had.
Two thousand and seven was a special year just because
I think it all came together for us as an organization,
as a team that one year. Um, two thousand and six,
we were close, Uh, go to Kansas City, had a
(09:41):
chance to win in Kansas City. If we win in
Kansas City, we make the playoffs and we I think,
I forget what we lost by, but we lost. So
that that kind of that off season. I remember a
lot of the guys we went on a vacase and
they were like, look, this is the year. Everyone go
and work hard. Everyone do what you have to do.
Come back and let's go. Let's go and take this
thing over. Um. So two thousand seven we come back. Uh. Granted,
you talked about we talked about Chris Naoli, we talked
(10:03):
about Vinnie man oh Y, we talked about Brad Measter.
We had a Tony pass shows that year. UM, and
so it was crazy to see Kalif Barnes and left
tackle who doesn't get enough credit for blocking Dwight Freeney
and Robert Mathis by hisself. When we would go on
those games, we would never slide the line. We would
slide the line the other way and he would have
(10:23):
to be one on one with either Dwight Freeney or
Robert Mathis. And so we knew going in that we
had an opportunity. And that year was it was a
little weird because that's the year Byron left, which gets
cut right before the season. UM. And I remember Mike
Peterson UH having a team meeting saying like it doesn't matter,
you know, we can't control that, and that was something
(10:44):
that was really important for us to hear because we
were a young team. Now that I look back at it,
like I think Fred might have been twenty seven, Mike
Peterson might have been twenty six seven ish, and I'm
twenty one UM at the time, so I'm thinking these
guys were like super old, but they're young, you know. UM.
And so to have that leadership from our leaders who say,
(11:05):
we can't control what's going on over there. All we
can do is control our play on the field, and
if we believe that we're a playoff team or a
championship team, will go and show it. And so uh
we start we start running. UM. I would say a
year we played the Falcons where that was the year
Big got in trouble. We played the Falcons, We got
after them pretty good. Um we played, Uh, David Garas
(11:27):
are starting quarterback, We're rolling, David gets hurt. We're going
to Tampa and beat Tampa. And we I think we
threw the ball seven times or eleven times, um, and
we It was funny. I remember going on the field
and I remember them uh talking about being nine on seven,
which is like a run inside run drill, and Uh
we did. We wanted to see if Tampa was ready
for Tampa was a cover two team. They wanted to
play West Coast offense. Did they were they able to
(11:49):
handle smash mouth football? And we went out there and
Quinn Gray as our quarterback and and he threw Uh.
I want to say, one touchdown to Matt Jones. But
other than that, we ran the ball seventeen times in
a row. At one point we were gonna impose our
will and everyone and obviously everyone remembers going into Pittsburgh,
beating Pittsburgh in the regular season, and then once we
(12:09):
got to the playoffs, I never saw the intensity I
now I then understood why the playoffs were the playoffs,
because practice was so intense. I mean, guys were tackling
each other and man, we were hidden and we were
doing everything to make sure that we understood. You know,
during the regular season, some guys would stay here and
you know, hang out, some guys would go places. In
(12:30):
the playoffs, everyone stayed and watch film. Everyone knew what
was at at hand. And so to go into Pittsburgh
and and and then beat them a second time, a
team that was built like we were. Uh, I wanted
to be physical, run the ball, bigger quarterback, Um, all
those things are going there and beat them way we
did in that fashion. Um, it was nice. And then
(12:52):
to be honest, going to New England was even that
week was even crazier. And that I think that's when
I realized, you know, that's when I gained a lot
of respect over the years for New England because I
was so tired that week. I think I was going
to be at like six o'clock every night and so
trying to just get my energy. I've never played into
January before and never been there, so I was doing
(13:13):
everything I could to keep my energy up. Um. I
think everyone else was doing the same thing. Practice were
even more intense. Um, we're going to that game, but
we were rolling. We we had a you know, a
couple of mishaps here, but we had an opportunity to
win the game and it just didn't happen. But that team,
it was so many little things that went on throughout
that year, um, that we overcame. And that's part of
(13:34):
the you know, always tell people, you know, there's a
little luck involved when winning a championship. It's not you
you are a really good team, but there's a little
bit of luck involved. You're healthy, which is one which
we were that year. Um. You you don't, you know,
Mike Vick goes out so we don't have to play
him and against Atlanta, we we have some different other teams.
(13:55):
We knew we were a good team. We lost to
the Colts twice, but we knew we had him beat
in Indian up and we knew we could beat him. Um.
But I mean there were so many little things that
went on, like so many uh a little adverse situations
that we're able to kind of use his motivation to
get better. Um, you know, it made it so special
even til today, Like, um, I would I would anytime
(14:17):
I go to Hawaii, I go hang out with Chris
Naoli and Benny Mana Ya rest his soul, and and
those guys. We would just talk about life, right, we
talked about football. We talk about those times. I remember
being here in two thousand seven, a young kid um
going out and Chris Naoli would like pick me up
from my house to drive me to work because it
meant that much to him, or you know, his his
(14:40):
wife would cook for me. Or I would go and
eat at certain people's houses because I didn't have I
didn't have I wasn't married at the time, I didn't
have when to live. I was living by myself, so
I was eating like Sonic Burger and stuff. But they
knew it was so important that they'd be like, well,
you come over and get a home cooked meal. Right.
Those little things are the things that made that team special.
I had to hang out with Fred and we we
go and watch tape, and we go and do certain
(15:00):
things like we just we just were a complete team
at that point. They came back to Earth in two
thousand eight, and in early two thousand nine, everything changed.
The Jaguars released Fred Taylor and elevated Jones drew to
the role of feature back. It was the opportunity he craved,
but it came at the expense of the teammate he loved.
(15:22):
His relationship with Taylor helped the transition and set the
stage for three incredible years. In two thousand eight, we
we had a championship team, but those adverse situations that
we had in two thousand seven that were able to overcome,
we weren't able to do it because of you know,
the NFL is so different than any other level of
(15:45):
football or other sport because money comes into play, and
so we had some moves there that people couldn't we
couldn't get over, we couldn't overcome, and so we had
a lot of injuries, we had a lot of thing
and it just wasn't a good year for us. Uh Um.
I remember in two thousand and eight being in Lake Tahoks.
I just had my first son and we were going
(16:07):
to Tahoe as a family, and I got a call
from my agent saying like they just released Fred and
I was like, what are you kidding me? And so
I merely text him like hey, man, like is this true?
Like what's going on? He was like yeah, you know, Um,
I appreciate everything, Like you know, if you ever need anything,
call me, and I'm like, I'm going to I'm about
(16:28):
to I'm literally about to leave Lake Tahoe in two
days and I'm going to Miami. So I'll see you
in in like three or four days and we'll talk
about it. Um, and I get down there and again,
you know, I'm I'm supposed to replace him. There's all
these different things that are going on, and yet he
was still willing to be that mentors to me, like
still pushing me when we're training in Miami, still doing
(16:49):
the little things that we had did from the day one.
And so it was it was hard for me to
be able to rationalize or be able to understand that,
you know, like how to how that happens, Like you
just got released and then you're still willing to the
guy that they're putting in your place. You're still willing
to help out. Um. But you know that's what Fred,
(17:10):
That's who Fred was. And so I trained that offseason
understand that I had a high there was expectations set
on me at this point. Right, you got a new
tough contract. Um, Fred's gone. What Fred had did in
the past, right, ten thousand yards, all these big seasons,
like I had to go and be able to either
match that or surpass that. And so that was my
that was my goal, my personal goals, UM, and that's
(17:31):
what I trained for. Uh. Granted, obviously the team goal
is to win a championship and we would play to
do those things. But that that was a time in
my life where I really didn't under I didn't understand,
you know, I felt like we had all we needed
was like one more piece. It was like, just keep Fred,
We'll figure this thing out. We have one more piece.
But the organization wanted to go in different ways, and
(17:53):
it was what it was. But the reason those three
years were those three years that I had after Fred,
was because there was I always knew that he has
set a standard in a bar for running backs and
that I had to to either uphold it or lifted
even higher. And that was to me the most important
thing I can do. Um to do my job to
the best of my ability, no matter if you had
(18:15):
eight or nine guys in the box. You know, I
was sitting meet with the offensive line and Brad Meester
was still here, Benny Man and I was here for
a little bit. Oocha knew Wharry was here. Um, we
had a passials was there for a second. I mean,
we had a bunch of guys that you know, we
ended up drafting Eugene Monroe and Evan Britten, and I was,
you know, as a whole we were trying to at
(18:37):
least I was. I wanted people understand, like the standards
still the standard, right, Like when Fred was here, you
could have put fifteen guys in the box. We were
still gonna run the ball when you know, And it
was because the way offensive line was gonna block it
was the way I was gonna run. It was the
way that David was going to check into the right play,
like everything had to be the same, and so uh
(18:57):
those years going into it, it was all about making
sure that I didn't um, that I did not mess
up what the the running back the running backs of
Jacksonville have set from all the way back from James
Stewart to nature. Means. I was Fred Taylor to myself
and then too when I left, I said the same
thing that the next guy like, you know, like this
(19:19):
is Denard Robinson, Like here you go, like you gotta
make sure that you do it this way because this
is what the standard is and so um, but you
know it was. It was some good times man like,
like I mean, there's so many stories you could talk
about that. I remember um in two thousand and eleven
when we won the Rushing Todd And I say we
because the receivers really were selfless blocking on the outside
(19:40):
like fullbacks, and Greg Jones was here and in our
line and we were seeing nine and ten guys in
the box every week. It was there was no there
like it was. It was just like, hey, this is
what is gonna be. And I laugh now because I
see these guys complaining about having loaded boxes and I'm like, yeah,
that was the everyday thing for us. That was everyday
thing for us. So it's uh, you know, those years
(20:02):
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A A passionate football player, Jones Drew was also a businessman,
(20:48):
and he could see the change was in the air.
After a two thousand ten season which fell short of
the playoffs. It's funny how this, you know, the the
NFL lambscape and landscape can change. Um. I remember again
in two thousand eleven, we're going into the season and
we cut David Garrard the week before the season or
the week of the season, and it was like, oh no,
(21:10):
all right, well we did this last time. This has
a chance to work. The difference was we didn't have
the personalities in the locker room that we had in
two thousand and seven the last time we did it.
So my as a leader on the team and as
one of the older people on the team, it was
my job to corral everyone. So I we had a
team meeting and it was like, look, well it doesn't matter,
(21:31):
we have to go out there and do our job.
And so um that year we drafted Blaying Gabber. We
had the lockout situation. There was so much going on
in this building, right there was there was the rumblings
of the team being sold. There was all type of
stuff going down, and so you're trying to you know, people,
I want to people talk about distractions like that is
(21:52):
the craziest thing I've ever been a part of, because
you don't know if the team is sold, if you're
gonna make it, because now it's it's a different owner
wants to do whatever he wants to do. You don't
know if the team is gonna be moved. Yeah, family
stuff you have to worry about. I mean, there's everything
that goes into that. On top of now, we gotta
play football without our starting quarterback, right and I still
(22:12):
feel to this day if David would have played in
in two thousand and eleven, we probably would't went to
the playoffs and made some noise because we were close
a couple of games. But going back to the season,
you know, Luke McCown uh is our starting quarterback. UH
play really well in the first game when the first
game we go to the Jets and he throws four picks,
(22:32):
And I knew in that situation what was gonna happen.
I already knew, Like if he didn't play well, Blaine
Gabard was coming in and we're gonna play with this
rookie quarterback who still he had the armed talent, but
still didn't understand that the NFL landscape the game of
football because of what he did in high school and college.
He played in the spread offense. So it's a little
bit different. Um. But again, it was one of those
(22:54):
things where I was like, hey, like I I still
have to uphold my end of the bargain to Fred Taylor.
As an organization and as a team, we stopt to
uphold our our ore into the bargain is going out
there and putting our best foot forward. And we did.
We did everything we could. Um. You know, we again
we ran against eight nine in boxes. Um. You know,
(23:15):
we did everything that we had to do to try
to put ourselves in position to win, and we we were,
and we lost a bunch of games by close scores.
So it wasn't like we were getting blown out like
we did against the Jets. UM. But you know, that's
part of it. Like it was, it was just a
lot of outside noise that kept seeping into what we
were trying to do. UM. After at the end of
that year, I remember or towards the end of that year.
(23:35):
I remember, like every day and practice, the offensive linem
be like, how many more yards we need to win
this thing? How many more yards we need to win
this thing. I was like, I don't know, I don't know,
but let's just keep rolling. And I end up either
hurting my hip flex or in like week eleven, and
so I couldn't practice anymore at this point, and the
offensive lineman would be like, yo, you're playing in the
game right, like this is the one thing that we're
(23:57):
gonna do. If we don't do anything else, we're gonna
win this Russian time. I was like, I got you.
I'm gonna playing the game. And I would get here
like five of the morning, get treatment all these different things.
I would try to run some days it wouldn't work. Uh,
really didn't get going until running back to like week
thirteen or fourteen late in the year. And then I
remember the morning of the last game, le Shaw McCoy's
up uh or he was I think he was gonna
(24:19):
be active, but then they decided to make him inactive
and so but we still we had won the rushing
tile the morning of the Coast game, but we wanted
to get the the single season rushing record, and so
I remember warming up to get the day of the
game and pulling my Hamshire and warming up and I
was like, oh, this is crazy, and so I hurry up,
(24:40):
I run in and I go talk to Mike Ryan.
I'm like, you know, I think I either pulled my
Hamshire or a tour it or something, but like, we
need to get this thing fixed because I have to
play um. And only only people that knew were Mike
Ryan and and uh melt Tucker. At the time, there's
only two people that knew. So we get in the game.
I think we might have been like currently around. We
might have been sixty yards a hundred and sixty yards
(25:04):
away or something, which was it was like a tall task,
but we knew we could do it, and I think
we got one sixty nine or something that day. But
the smile on those guys faces on everyone from the receivers,
the offensive linemen to the coaches, that that's what it
was all about. It the end the day was like,
regardless of how bad this season was, we were able
to hang our hat that we're able to win the
rushing title in a season that we had a ton
(25:24):
of things, team being sold, coach being fired, had starting
quarterback cut week one, all these different things going around,
we were still able to salvage something UM and it
was it was awesome. Now it goes from being on
the high of highs too. During the off season. During
that season, we were in the contract talks, uh, possibly
(25:45):
during another extension, UM, so that you know, I could
retire a Jaguar, like be a Jaguar forever. That was
something that was important to me. UM. But like as
we were playing once a team sold, UM, we stopped communicating.
And I think that was the biggest issue that I
had with the front office at that time, was that
(26:07):
there was no communication. UM. So you know, after the season,
I made it clear and I don't think people will
know this, but I made it clear, like I wanted
a new contract. We we had we had I want
to say, we just won the rushing title sixteen hundred yards. Uh.
The year before that it was through and so whatever
in the year before that was thirteen. So it was
(26:28):
that the numbers were there, um, and that we were
facing things that no one ever faced before. And so
I was like, yo, like it's time to start rewarding
us for the things that we're doing, um in these
adverse situations. And so I made it clear that I
wanted a new contractor I wanted an extension, um going
into that going into that off season, which I didn't
(26:48):
think was hard because it wasn't like we had a
ton of money. There was a lot of you know,
there wasn't really many people out there. Um, so uh,
we're I remember my agent going to the combine and
him talking to the front office and the people in
the building, and you know, they kind of like they
never just they tried to make it like the elephant
was the room. Never just wanted to speak on it, like, oh, well,
(27:09):
this guy is doing well, because my agent had a
bunch of other guys on the team, and this guy
is doing well. And I am like, well, you know,
like I know, Maurice has talked to you. Um, he's
really adamant about getting this deal done before it's you know,
it's all said and done. All we got some other
things we gotta do, and you know, we're we're we'll
work on it all right. So, uh, at that point,
(27:29):
they hadn't hired coach Malarkey. They were waiting on hiring
finding a coach, um, I think, and then they hired
coach Malarkey and some different things, and UM, what upset
me more than anything was that they went out and
paid some guys in free agency that had UM I
don't I don't know how to say it, because they
just they just didn't put they the numbers and the
(27:51):
stuff they had done. The production they had had nothing
compared to what I did at that point, and so
that frustrated me. Was like, okay, you can give you know,
the whole adages take care of home first, Like for
some reason, we forgot about that, and so we had
guys in our building that should have been paid, obviously
myself included. UM, but you go out and paid get
these other people all this other money, and then you know,
(28:13):
one guy gets hurt, another guy ends up playing a
little bit. It just it just it didn't. It didn't
feel right to me, and so I told him, I'm like,
you know, I understand the whole argument of honor your contract,
but at the same time, you have to understand where
I'm coming from as well as a players that we're
we're going out there running against. It doesn't matter who
(28:34):
the receiver receivers were else outside. It didn't matter anything,
Like you could have had Randy Moss team when you
played Jacksonville like they still do today. They're gonna load
the box and do their job. And so we didn't
have a lot of communication throughout. There was some you know,
I there's some things that people say like I better
do something or this and that, and if you know
me that that's like the worst thing you can tell
me because I always do the opposite. Um. And so
(28:56):
it just it went from being on the top of
you know, see the rushing title, to the miscommunication, the
not really just telling me as a as a man
or as an adult saying, hey, you know, we're not
gonna redo your deal. I'd rather you just something we're
not gonna do your deal and you have to come
in and give me, give us one more year and
then we'll talk about it instead of just not talking
to me. Period. And it went from that to the holdout. Um.
(29:20):
Finally coming back from the holdout, which you know, was
one of the toughest things I've ever done because at
that point, my my oldest son was just understanding football
and learning football, and every day he would say, I
thought you love football, Like why don't you want to play?
And all these things, and I was trying to explain
to them how it's this is. It's just not it's
not like youth football, high school or college. This is
this is a business, and you know there's a part
(29:40):
in business that that kind of uh takes over a
little bit. Um. But then coming back and and I
actually being in the Russian Leader for a couple of
weeks and then breaking my foot and and it was
crazy because I come back and I'm in great shape,
I'm running, I'm having I'm doing a great you know,
we're we're doing a great job. Even though we weren't winning,
we were we were getting better. And then we go
(30:01):
to Oakland, the team that we should have beaten, um,
and the first play someone just lands on me wrong
on my foot brakes and a half and that was it.
Jones Drew saw the transition from Jack del Rio to
Mike mclarkey in two thousand twelve, and then Mike mlarkey
to Gus Bradley inteen. He transitioned himself from Jacksonville to
(30:24):
Oakland in and then from playing to broadcasting shortly after
that season ended, his body no longer able to withstand
the punishment it dealt out weekly to defenders on his
way to the end zone. He left with eighty one
career touchdowns, the most in Jaguars history, and his sixteen
hundred and six rushing yards in eleven remained the franchise's
(30:44):
single season record at nine and eighty yards from scrimmage
is also the team mark. Along the way, countless memories
were created, from his taking a knee at the Jets
one yard line to set up a field goal and
kill the flock, to that touchdown run against the Patriots
where he seemed bottled up then it floaded from the
pile to his incredible yard day with two eighty yard
(31:04):
touchdown runs in Tennessee. The list goes on and on
and on. Someday in the very near future, he'll be
recognized for his incredible commitment to Jacksonville on and off
the field, and it's another moment he can't wait to
share with his family in Jacksonville. Uh Man being put
in the Ring of Honor would be one of the
(31:25):
top things that uh, you know, it's it's it's hard
to think about. Earlier this month, I was put on
the ballot for the Hall of fame, And I never
would have thought that because at the end of the day,
I played because I loved it. I played because I
was around the right people, and I love the people
I was around. UM. But to get recognized later in
your career for what you did when you're playing is
(31:45):
is one of the best honors you can have, UM.
And to be able to put up next to Fred Taylor,
guy that I you know that I love, Like when
when when when Fred wasn't number one, I was hurt
for him as much as I wanted to be number one,
like it hurt me because I know I saw what
he did every day. Now granted I didn't see Tony
Boselli and what he did every day, but I saw
Fred played through injuries. I saw Fred get up here
(32:08):
in the morning and all the stuff that he did.
And so that was my personal connection with him. To
be able to be up there with with him, Brad Measter,
all these like like it to me, it's like it's
just like it just feels like it. UM. I'm trying
to think of the word, but it's it's not even
accepted or except it's just like gratifying, like all the
hard work we put in together for the guys that
(32:29):
I played with. It came out for something and and
and you know, I know what I mean, lots of
my family I know me and a lot to my
friends that are in this city. Um, and my kids
for sure love it. But uh, I can't wait for
that day to come. And it'll be exciting.
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