December 6, 2024 • 45 mins
What happens when the intense dynamics of the NFL collide with the demands of player safety? We tackle the complexities surrounding the Jacksonville Jaguars' recent hard-fought game against the Houston Texans, a match that ended in a tense 23-20 loss. Despite a slow start, the clash heated up dramatically, culminating in a controversial hit that has everyone talking. Is C.J. Stroud's performance this season truly falling short, or is there more beneath the surface? And what does this mean for the Jaguars as division rivals like the Colts begin to show signs of resurgence?
As the Jaguars lick their wounds, we shift focus to the Texans' playoff prospects in an AFC South filled with teams on the mend. Despite facing skepticism, the Texans might find a path to the playoffs through a division with rivals in various stages of rebuilding. But how will they fare against powerhouses like the Chiefs and Bills, or even a struggling Ravens team? We explore the ramifications of Azeez Al-Shaair's
suspension for his hit on Trevor Lawrence, examining the NFL's response and what it signals for the future of player safety and league rules.
From the sidelines to the locker room, we unpack the heated reactions and defense strategies from both teams in the aftermath of a contentious play. With insights from former players and coaches, we question the evolving nature of quarterback protection and the balance between safety and the sport's inherent aggression. How do figures like Chris Canty and Rex Ryan interpret these incidents, and what do their perspectives say about the current state of the game? Join us as we advocate for Trevor Lawrence's long-term health and discuss what the Jaguars can do to adapt to the changing landscape of the NFL.
James Johnson and Phil Barrera bring you the best and most up to date Jacksonville Jaguars news. "Touchdown Jaguars!" is a tribute to the prospective ownership group "Touchdown Jacksonville!" In 1991, the NFL announced plans to add two expansion teams and "Touchdown Jacksonville!" announced its bid for a team, and Jacksonville was ultimately chosen as one of five finalists. In November 1993, the NFL owners voted 26–2 in favor of awarding the 30th franchise to Jacksonville. James and Phil have been fans of the franchise ever since and have had the honor (and sometimes dishonor) of covering the team professionally since 2017. The rest as they say, is history.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, Phil here, Just a quick editor's note
that I wanted to add, just soyou guys know.
This episode was recorded alittle bit earlier in the day,
on Wednesday, December 4th,before the news was announced
that Trevor was going to be outfor the remainder of the season.
So you'll hear us mention hey,Trev, go ahead and shut it down
for the rest of the year.
This is before we knew thatdecision was going to be made,
(00:22):
so just want to let you guysknow.
Enjoy the episode.
Oh my God, Jaguars Play actionUpstairs wide open.
(01:10):
Tommy Bohannon TouchdownJacksonville.
Looking for Jimmy in the endzone Touchdown Jaguars.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Welcome to the TouchdownJaguars podcast.
Here are your hosts, JamesJohnson and Phil Smith.
(01:34):
Hey everyone, welcome back tothe Touchdown Jaguars podcast.
I am your co-host, Phil Smith,and joining us, as always, is
your other co-host, JamesJohnson and Jay.
We are here recording on the4th of December, my birthday
actually.
So shout out to those of youthat have reached out and wished
me a happy birthday.
We are.
Even though it is my birthday,Jay, we are still here working
(01:54):
because we have a lot to discusswhen it comes to the Jaguars.
We'll see if this is a briefepisode, but I'm sure we have a
ton to say about what went downover the weekend, and not so
much about the final score, inwhich the Jaguars did
unfortunately lose again, but,Jay, everything that has come
out since then and everythingsurrounding the incident that
happened between the Jaguars andthe Texans here in Duval County
(02:18):
.
So, regardless, Jay, excited tobe back here with you as we are
just kind of counting down thedays until the season has ended.
But unfortunately we werethrown a very violent wrinkle in
this waiting process here overthe weekend.
So looking forward todiscussing all of this with you,
even though it was a very, veryugly scene down at Everbank
(02:40):
Field.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, man.
Well, first and foremost, happybirthday, as I have already
said, man, and yeah, you know,holidays have never kind of
stopped us from recording man.
So I appreciate you being hereon your big day, man, and hope
you enjoy it.
And here's to many, many more.
And, as you said, yeah, you'reright, this episode was thrown
(03:05):
an ugly wrinkle when consideringthe situation that went down on
the field, which we'll talkabout in depth.
Not just that, but like theaftermath of it too, and you
know what has transpired inpress conferences after and what
have you.
Of course, you know, as always,you like to get the win against
the Texas, especiallyconsidering what happened in the
(03:27):
game.
Right, that would have been anice win to have, and me and you
, you know, we kind of talkedabout that last week where we
wouldn't be surprised if wecould win that game.
And the game was winnable andit was, you know, close.
It didn't really get too out ofhand, even when the injury took
place.
(03:47):
But yeah, man, man, nonetheless,it made for a interesting
episode when you take intoconsideration what transpired on
the field.
Can't wait to talk about it,but of course, before we do that
, we always got to plug somestuff, right?
Of course, you can follow me atsportsgrind, underscore down on
twitter, ph Phil at Phil theFilipino on Twitter, and also
you can follow our website,which is touchdownjadwarscom,
(04:11):
the official Twitter handle forthe podcast TDJadwarsPod, and I
think I covered everything.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, everything you need will be in the Linktree
link of this and every singleepisode, so make sure you check
that out, along with that promocode, touchdown Jaguars you can
use over on SeatGeek and saveyourself $20 on your first
purchase with them.
So yeah, jay, let's go aheadand jump into it here, as we are
anxious to discuss the eventsof this past Sunday.
As far as the seemingly lessimportant things, the Jaguars
(04:44):
did lose to the Houston Texans23-20.
There was a comeback effortbetween the third and the fourth
quarter.
It was a pretty quiet game interms of the, I would say,
probably the first threequarters.
To be honest with you, six tothree at halftime.
The Houston Texans continue tokind of be this polarizing team
(05:04):
I believe I mean now.
Granted, I've tried to stayaway from more overarching
statements when it comes toteams that I just obviously am
not keeping up with in my olderage, as we have done this longer
and longer.
So all I can really do, jay, islook at the eye test in terms
of the Houston Texans and saythey haven't really been that
(05:25):
impressive this year, where, onthe opposite side of things,
we're starting to see we talkedabout this last week the
Indianapolis Colts starting toput some things together.
Anthony Richardson is lookinggood.
He was the reason they won thatgame over the weekend and you
know, obviously, with theirseason on the line, they made a
big choice in terms of coachingand that worked out for them.
(05:49):
But nonetheless, houston comesin and they've had this kind of
strange season.
Cj Shroud seems to haveregressed a little bit.
Some people are talking abouthaving this conversation about
the Houston Texans, right, andare they really as good as we
expected them to be?
Are they underperforming?
Sophomore slump, all of that.
So before we get to the mostobvious stuff, jay, let's talk
about the football on the field.
I once again, as has been thestory I feel like this entire
(06:11):
season was traveling on the dayof the game, so I did not get to
see it.
So interested to see, in termsof the football side of things,
what your takeaways were fromthe game.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, we'll keep it brief because I only saw
three-fourths of it and I'mstill watching the film as we
speak, or I'll continue to watchthe film after this episode.
But yeah, I've seen aboutthree-four quarters of it and my
biggest takeaway from it was itwas relatively quiet.
The first two quarters theywere really just exchanging
(06:44):
field goals.
You know, um, and you know, Iwould say, cj stroud, as you
mentioned, actually there weresome plays he maybe left on the
field right where he could havemaybe gotten rid of the ball or
not taking a sack here and there.
And you know there was somelike covered sack things and
things of that nature where youlook at it and, like you know,
you say like dang c CJ, youdidn't have to take that sack.
(07:08):
I guess for the sake of playingthe Jacksonville Jaguars, we
won't complain about stuff likethat.
Right, we'll take any help wecan get from a quarterback.
But after that, I think whathappened in that second half at
least, again, I only seen like amajority of the third quarter,
not the fourth quarter, butthat's kind of when Joe Mixon
took over, looks like theJaguars really didn't have any
(07:29):
answers for him in the run gameand you know he made plays in
the passing game too.
So I think, like you know, if Ihad to guess that continued in
the fourth quarter, I'll, youknow, talk about that more on
Twitter when I see the fourthquarter, uh.
But I think that's what it is,man.
After that half the first half,joe Mixon took over and kind of
(07:51):
propelled this team to wherethey needed to be and I'm
talking about the Texans here,not us uh to get the victory
over the Jacksonville Jaguarsyeah, I had been keeping up with
the timeline a little bitthroughout the day and seeing
that Trevor had also kind ofleft some stuff out there on the
(08:11):
field obviously had theinterception.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
There was certainly the narrative that, without some
overthrows and misses, brianThomas has himself yet another
big day and he still ended uphaving a really solid day four
catches, 76 yards and atouchdown.
Parker Washington also had asolid day himself six catches,
103 yards.
But yeah, ultimately they fellshort in their comeback effort.
(08:37):
And yeah, you know, I'm veryinterested to see if Houston,
you know, finds themselves inthe same position that we were
in last year, where you knowit's a win and get in.
And actually, what is there?
Do they play Indy on the finalday of the year?
No, they play Tennessee,although I think we close with
Indianapolis, if I remembercorrectly.
(08:59):
I don't have the schedule uphere in front of me, but it will
be interesting because Houstonwill be in that position where
they need to beat Tennessee andIndianapolis will be playing us
at home.
So we'll see how it goes.
But yeah, jay, I've just beennot overly impressed with the
Houston Texans and obviouslywe're going to come off as
homers, but just the way thatthey've performed and, you know,
(09:21):
with CJ Shroud coming into theseason obviously with a ton of
hype, and deservedly so.
He had an outstanding rookieseason and he's going to be kind
of the standard thatquarterbacks are going to be
held to going forward as far asrookies.
I mean look at Caleb Williams,that happened to him this year.
But yeah, jay, just been alittle underwhelmed with them,
although I will say Joe Mixonhas been having himself a solid
game and I had a feeling thatwas going to be a big pickup for
(09:43):
them heading into this season.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
So, yeah, to add on to what you were saying, phil,
the last divisional game in theAFC South for the Houston Texans
is the Titans.
That's week 18.
And that game, I believe, hasyet to be determined in terms of
the time not the score but thetime.
So that's what they have leftin terms of the remainder of the
season.
And yeah, to add on what yousaid about Trevor, that was
(10:11):
another thing that I forgot tomention.
Yeah, he, you know that first,I think, like drive, he looked
pretty good and then after thathe kind of fell off.
He was, you know, missed timein some throws overthrows just
wide of the receiver, you know,just to the left or to the right
of the receiver, depending onwhat kind of routes they were
running.
Missed BTJ on a big one that heunderthrew and the safety was
(10:37):
able, or the cornerback was able, to undercut it because it hung
in the air a little too long.
So you know he was showing theeffects of, you know, probably
not practicing as much as hecould have.
I know he practiced that weekof, but you know he was dealing
with the issue the week before,the injury issue the week before
(10:58):
.
So that probably maybe playedinto it.
Not making any excuses for him,but I'm kind of not shocked
that he looked the way that hedid when considering he was
coming off an injury and maybedidn't practice as much as he
should have.
But I guess the moreinteresting thing heading
forward is do they shut him down?
I think they should.
I think they should have shuthim down period before the
(11:20):
Texans game and he shouldn'thave played in the Texans game.
But that's neither here orneither there.
Going back to the Texans, yeah,I agree with you.
I think if they're in any otherdivisions that it will be a
struggle for them.
But luckily they're in adivision where, you know, trent
Baalke constructed a team andDoug Peterson doesn't know how
(11:42):
to coach and has Press Taylor ashis offensive coordinator.
And the Texans or, excuse me,the Titans are kind of young and
upcoming.
You know they're trying to findtheir way.
They have a young quarterbackand you know the Colts are I
don't know what.
What's the issue with the Colts?
That's?
That's a good question.
In terms of what's their issue.
I guess it kind of falls withfalls along the lines of the
(12:03):
Titans.
They have a young quarterbackwho you know he only played in a
limited amount of games interms of before he came to the
NFL.
We knew he would be a project,so that's probably what's
stalling them when you look atit.
So yeah, man, I think we vastlyoverrated the Texans heading
into this season.
(12:24):
I think they still win thedivision nonetheless, but I
think when they get into theplayoffs there'll be a team that
you know their issues will showup relatively fast in the
postseason.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Yeah, I agree with you.
When you're looking at theother teams that are going to be
in contention that they may runinto when it comes to the AFC
specifically, I mean I thinkyou're looking at them being
maybe even the weakest and mostflawed team.
I mean the Broncos are playingvery well, the Chargers, and
(12:58):
then you have the Ravens.
We'll see how the Ravens finish.
Like there is a little bit ofconcern there on my end.
I don't know how you feel aboutBaltimore J and just kind of how
they're, um, they're kind ofsputtering here towards the end
of the season, which is a realbummer.
I mean, I, you and I are bigfans of Lamar Jackson, but when
you look at all the other teamsthat are that they could run
into in the AFC obviously KansasCity and Buffalo, those are
(13:19):
outliers.
Pittsburgh, I think, isdefinitely better than them, and
then also, like I said, thoseother three playoff teams the
chargers, ravens and broncos, Ithink are better than them.
Um, and then we'll see.
Like you know, obviously thecolts are catching them.
So just to kind of pivot here.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
When it comes to the playoff picture in general, jay,
I mean, do you see houstonbeating any of those teams, la
baltimore or denver right nowthey may can beat the Ravens and
, as you said, the Ravens arekind of sputtering, but the
Ravens sputtered into the season, you know, like I think they
started with two or three lossesin the season and they kind of
(13:55):
picked it up a little bit afterthat and now they're back to
where they were.
So, you know, maybe the Ravensthey can be in the Ravens
defenses and all that great.
So if they end up in a matchupwith them, that could favor the
Texans.
But these other teams that youmentioned, I think they have a
(14:16):
great chance to beat the TexasChargers.
What they're doing with JKDobbins, I think they'll be able
to run the ball pretty well,which you need to do in the
postseason anyway.
On um, on the Texans and youknow Ladd McConkie is adding
some things to the passing gamethere too as well.
Go dogs right.
I remember a lot of people werehigh on him and what he would
(14:38):
offer for NFL offense and it'sshowing early and often.
So so yeah, no, I agree, man,like I think of those teams,
though I think the Ravens, justwhen you look at where they are
defensively and just kind of howthey been a rollercoaster this
off season.
That's the one team that youknow.
If you maybe probably put somemoney on it, you know I would
(15:00):
maybe go with the Texans in thatgame.
I guess we'll see how things goat the end of the regular
season we can kind of gauge thata little better and who has
momentum going into thepostseason.
But the Ravens are the one teamthat I would say if you're a
Houston Texas fan you might wantto end up in a matchup with
them yeah, of course, if theywin the division, they will host
a playoff game.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
So well, they would get the highest seed, though, if
you kind of look at it rightnow, because obviously Kansas
City, buffalo, pittsburgh, andthen, if things, you know, stay
the way they are, they would getthe top seed in terms of the
wildcard, which right now Ibelieve would be the Chargers.
So, yeah, that might not be themost favorable matchup, but who
knows?
I mean, there's a lot offootball left.
We were talking about four moregames and a lot can happen in
(15:43):
that four game span.
So we will see.
But, jay, all that to say as weget into the primary topic of
this episode is just theabsolutely vicious hit by Aziz
Alshayer of the Houston Texansto Trevor Lawrence.
I remember again, I was inOrlando and just getting those
text messages from the groupchat and also getting the
(16:04):
notifications on the socialmedia.
It's just an absolutelydisgusting display of
quote-unquote football byAlshayer and there's been a lot
of fallout coming out of thishit and coming out of what
happened over the weekend.
First, let's start with what weknow now as of December 4th,
(16:24):
because he has been suspendedfor three games for his illegal
hit on Trevor Lawrence.
The league cited quote repeatedviolations of rules intended to
protect the health and safetyof players and promote
sportsmanship.
Nfl Vice President of FootballOperations, john Runyon, issued
Shire's suspension and actuallywrote him the following letter,
(16:45):
which the NFL did publish Duringyour game against the
Jacksonville Jaguars on December1st, with four minutes and 20
seconds remaining in the secondquarter, you were involved in a
play that the league considersunacceptable and a serious
violation of the playing rules.
Video shows you striking thehead and neck area of Jaguars
(17:05):
quarterback Trevor Lawrenceafter he clearly goes down in a
feet-first slide.
You led with your forearm andhelmet and delivered a forceful
blow to the head and neck areaof your opponent when you had
time and space to avoid suchcontact.
After the illegal hit, youproceeded to engage in a brawl,
which you escalated when youpulled an opponent down to the
ground by his face mask.
(17:25):
After the referee announcedthat you were disqualified for
the hit and your unsportsmanlikeacts, you removed your helmet
and reengaged with your opponentwhile walking down and across
the field, which started anotherphysical confrontation near the
end zone.
Your lack of sportsmanship andrespect for the game of football
and all those who play, coachand enjoy watching.
It is troubling and does notreflect the core values of the
(17:48):
NFL.
Your continued disregard forNFL playing rules puts the
health and safety of both youand your opponents in jeopardy
and will not be tolerated.
And that's the thing withAlshair right, that came out a
lot after he made a statementonline, but also people,
specifically Houston Texans fans, defending him and saying you
know, this isn't the type ofplayer he is.
(18:08):
D'amico Ryan's coming out andprotecting him and defending him
.
But no, this is who Alshayer isas far as a player.
And listen, he was with D'AmicoRyan's in San Francisco, so I'm
sure there is a sense ofloyalty there, and it's also
your guy, san Francisco.
So I'm sure there is a sense ofloyalty there, and it's also
your guy, so you want to protecthim and probably in that moment
, probably trying to soften theblow, knowing the suspension was
coming down the pipeline.
(18:29):
But all this is BS man.
I didn't want to hear anythingthat he had to say in terms of
an apology, the whole thing withme.
That really escalates this andI think for a lot of people, jay
is he's leading with theforearm right and there's a
whole nother discussion I wantto have with you as a former
football player, when it comesto the slide, when it comes to
protecting the quarterback, whenit comes to all of these things
(18:50):
because all of this stuff canbe people are trying to point
out that, you know, maybe weneed to teach quarterbacks a
different way.
We'll discuss all that here ina second.
But I want to talk about yourinitial reaction to this, your
reaction to the suspension, andthen we'll talk about some of
the fallout here in just amoment, because there has been a
lot, and there's also been alot of nonsense coming from a
(19:10):
few different parties.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Right, right.
And when you say formerfootball player, let's be clear
to the people, because peopleare gonna be like oh, jay played
on the college level, he'stalking about high school
football, still more than Iplayed, though.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Still more football than I ever played.
So outside of flag.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Right, right, but yeah, I think, like in a
nutshell and I watched it playedabout eight times because you
know you want to be selective ofwhat you're saying and careful
about what you say and the onething that I kept coming back to
with the hit right field isthat Al Shaheer is to me, he
(19:47):
seems to be a player that'sover-aggressive, right, because
I go back to this.
What I kept going back to is,for years now, the NFL has been
coaching players and thisshouldn't necessarily be the
case.
Right, quarterbacks shouldn'tget hit any softer than any
other player.
But that's where we are intoday's NFL.
(20:07):
The NFL, the owners, the powersthat be, want you to hit the
quarterback softer than otherplayers and they want you to hit
the quarterback with morecaution than other players.
So you know, that's where weare right now, and they've been
training players for years onthe defensive side of how to
approach these hits when itcomes to hitting a quarterback
(20:31):
bringing a quarterback down, notlanding on them, you know, not
hitting them in the head, nothitting them outside of the from
the neck to the body range, youknow, hitting them outside of
that range.
All of these things have beenin place for years.
So Al Shaheer has been gettingcoaching and training on how to
(20:53):
hit quarterbacks and how toapproach a quarterback for years
, for years.
And for him to go into that hitwhich I paused it, and I paused
it before he actually began totake an action against Trevor
Lawrence, and I mean to me eachtime I paused it, it looks like
(21:14):
it's at least four to five yardsbetween him and Trevor when
Trevor started to slide, withthat amount of space between you
and the quarterback.
What I keep coming back to is Idon't understand how, with that
amount of space between the two, it led to Al Shayer diving at
(21:37):
him with a forearm.
I could see maybe it endingwith Trevor maybe getting hurt,
but taking a forearm to the headfull speed with the defender
diving at you.
I'm confused as to how that waswhat the reaction was for Al
Shayer.
And another thing, too, is Iwatch reactions a lot in
(21:58):
football Me and you talk aboutthis a lot, right, phil?
But you can tell a lot by howpeople react after a play.
That being said, when he hitTrevor also, what kind of made
me skeptical on his intent was alot of times what you'll see
with these hits, with defenderswhen they hit the quarterback
(22:18):
they'll try and lay off right.
It'll be some kind of reactionthat showed that they weren't
trying to make it as forceful asit could be, right.
You'll see sometimes a defenderturn his back so they're not
going into the quarterback, orthe person with the ball full
speed.
Sometimes you'll see I evenseen Calais Campbell one time
coddle a quarterback and keeplike basically keeping him from
(22:41):
falling to the ground head first.
You know like which.
You know I was like at the timeI was like wow, I never thought
I'd see the day where adefensive end holds a
quarterback up from hitting theground.
But you know that was his wayof making it not look as
forceful, right.
So you'll see these things,these actions during the hit or
after the hit or a little bitbefore the hit that would
(23:01):
indicate like the defenders nottrying to hit the quarterback
with full force Did not see thatwith this hit I saw somebody
leading with their forearmdiving full speed.
I didn't see him trying to breakhis fall.
You know, a lot of times yousee that right field when you're
tackling a quarterback.
You'll see defenders trying tobreak the fall or they'll do the
(23:22):
little gator roll motion sothey don't land completely on
the quarterback.
I didn't see any of theseactions that show he was trying
to reduce the force.
That he was coming at TrevorLawrence is what I'm trying to
say.
That too was a red flag to me.
And when you add in his reactionafterwards, the over-aggression
(23:44):
afterwards which I mean, Iguess you know we all can't
really speak on that situationuntil we're in it, you know,
maybe we'd react the same aswell if a whole football team
was trying to come at us orwhatever the case may be.
But the over-aggression and himgoing back for more, as they
mentioned in the statement, asJohn Runyon mentioned in the
statement, trying to go back formore that was the incident with
(24:06):
Brandon Scherf.
It didn't lead to anything, butthat's probably what they were
talking about there.
For him to go back for morejust shows me and puts me back
at my initial point that I saidat the beginning of this
statement.
That I said at the beginning ofthis statement.
We're looking at a player that'soveraggressive and that's not
receptive and not taking in, isnot taking in the coaching in
(24:27):
terms of how you hit andapproach a quarterback, because
you can't tell me that theTexans teach that.
I know D'Amico Ryans has saidwhat he said and their GM said
what he said, but you can't tellme that the Texans teach that,
because who teaches somethingthat would cost the team penalty
yardage?
Essentially, we're just lookingat a player who hasn't been
(24:47):
receptive of the new rules andhow to hit a quarterback and the
result was trevor lawrencegetting severely injured, and
that's where I am with it right,and that's kind of a good segue
here is because you mentioned,you know, demico ryan.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I didn't see the full Nick Cesario quote, but I did
see that kind of making rounds.
But let's talk about that firstbecause you know, obviously,
d'amico Ryan's former player avery physical player, mind you,
a guy that we are obviously veryfamiliar with being Jaguar fans
and just fans of football andthe AFC South in general, for
(25:29):
him to call out the Jaguars andtell them, you know, tell the
media that they then wereresponsible for escalating that
event and making it worse andkind of drawing it out.
Obviously I'm paraphrasing here.
I don't have the exact quote infront of him, but I do know
that he did blame Jacksonvillefor the events escalating
further than they already wereabout to escalate.
That's BS, right?
You're not telling me.
Actually, I've listened to quitea bit of former players talk
(25:51):
about this over the last coupleof days, specifically Chris
Canty and Harry Douglas over onESPN.
I listen to the Chris Canty'sradio show in the morning,
typically every day that I takemy daughter to school, so I
listen to him a lot Also.
That's a pretty pro Jaguar showIf anyone's looking for a kind
of like a mainstream media show.
I just want to shout out onSportsmanlike, on ESPN.
(26:13):
It's not the best, but it's OK.
But anyway, backtracking, theytalked about D'Amico Ryan's
comments.
I believe it was yesterday.
They talked about D'AmicoRyan's comments, I believe it
was yesterday, and both tookissue with it, because both of
them stated that if this everhappens to not even just your
quarterback, but even anotherone of your players, another one
(26:34):
of your teammates, that is theappropriate reaction.
And if it is not your reaction,then you could possibly get
thrown off a team.
If you're not going to go tobat for your brothers out here
and we understand that this is aviolent game, right, they
signed up for this.
It is a violent sport.
But if something like thathappens, that is not within the
(26:56):
brotherhood.
The unwritten rulebook offootball.
That is the appropriatereaction.
Shout out to Jerrion Jones.
Shout out to Brandon theappropriate reaction.
Shout out to Jerry and Jones.
Shout out to Brandon Scherf.
Shout out to, obviously, evanIngram, who was there first.
Shout out to Brian Thomas Jr,who was heated.
Shout out to everybody on theroster for reacting the way that
they did.
They reacted appropriately and,honestly, I'm surprised more
(27:19):
punches weren't thrown.
Maybe they were and Jerry andJones was just the only one that
got caught, but they reactedproperly.
And I guarantee you, if, d'amicoRyans you pointed this out
before we started, jay if thiswas CJ Stroud that this happened
to, then yeah, if that's howHouston then reacted, I'd be
like, yeah, that's how they'resupposed to react.
They're supposed to, they aresupposed to protect their guy,
(27:42):
they're supposed to look out forhim.
So for D'Amico Ryan's a formerplayer, a former linebacker,
mind you to come out and saythat is incredibly frustrating.
And I have a couple morequestions for you here on the
others, uh, a little bit later.
In terms of what, the future ofprotecting the quarterback,
because Rex Ryan also made somecomments that kind of like
frustrated me.
I'll ask you about that here injust a moment.
(28:03):
But yeah, jay, just expand alittle bit more on that.
Again, d'amico Ryan's if theroles were reversed, he'd be up
in arms about what happened tohis quarterback.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
So I don't like him calling us out for making things
worse oh yeah, he, heabsolutely would if the roles
were reversed, and if that wascj stroud, it'll be a more of a,
it would be more, uh, one ofthose issues brought more to the
light too, because stroud is amore popular quarterback than
trevor lawrence.
(28:33):
But that's neither here neitherthere.
The question is you know aboutdemico ryan's comment and, yeah,
you're right, it's absolutelybs man, I have seen coaches and
you know I'm not watching.
You know me, phil, I watched aton of football documentaries
and I watched a ton of, you know, just football mic'd up moments
and anything you can find onNFL network or YouTube.
(28:55):
Man, and just, I would say justabout, not even just about all
coaches that witnessed somethinglike that would react the same
way if it was their quarterbackor one of their other players,
whether it was an offensiveplayer, defensive player getting
hit on the sideline later thanthey should have.
I can recall one time, as amatter of fact, just to kind of
(29:16):
reflect on the reactions thatcoaches have when that happens
to one of their players.
I was watching the Jaguarsmic'd up moment and this was
back in the Jack Del Rio days.
I forgot what quarterback itwas.
It might have been DavidGarrard.
He got hit on the sidelineright near Jack Del Rio.
Jack Del Rio ran to the refereescreaming at him hey, that's my
(29:39):
quarterback, that's myquarterback.
So coaches not only just playersthat we saw out there shout
outs to all of the players thatreacted the way that they
reacted, the ones that youmentioned Brenton Strange was
one of them too.
But not only do players reactthat way, coaches are wired to
react that way, which is kind ofshocking why Doug Peterson
(30:01):
didn't react to it as well.
We'll come back to that laterdown the road as well, but I can
remember Jack Del Rio straightup running to the referee
screaming at him.
That's my quarterback.
And for us to hear D'Amico Ryansay something that just kind of
just embodies the exact opposite, it's just BS.
You're just trying to defend aguy that was in the wrong, and I
(30:22):
understand it, I get it.
You're just defending yourplayer.
But the word choice there andwhat you said could have been a
little bit better, because weall know if the roles were
reversed that was CJ's droughtyou would take heat to it, all
of your coaching staff would,all of the players would, and it
(30:42):
would be the same thing theJacksonville Jaguars did, if not
worse.
So that's how I feel on that.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Right.
And then to transition to thisRex Ryan thing, because they
were talking about this on GetUp, which is their morning show
on television over on ESPN, andRex Ryan was making the point
that he's kind of fed up,essentially, with these
quarterbacks sliding andexposing themselves to risk and
(31:08):
exposing themselves to injury,to risk and exposing themselves
to injury, and he was trying tomake the point of, instead of,
you know, the quarterback slideand taking advantage of these
rules, that they need to startdiving head first, like at the
defender's legs or somethingalong those lines.
And this was another thing thatChris Canty and again, harry
Douglas shout out to them wereboth like no, this is also not a
(31:33):
great idea.
You're then exposing yourselfto getting taking a knee to the
head or even hurting thedefensive player.
You know the point of thisobviously is we don't want to
see anybody get hurt.
You know, obviously, in theyear where we've seen Tua go
through what he has gone seeingyour quarterback that you cover
go into that fencing positionand anybody go into that fencing
position, regardless of whoyou're rooting for, it's
(31:55):
terrifying, right jay, it's ascary sight.
So I wanted to get your thoughtson that, not only what rex ryan
had to say.
I don't know if you saw thefull clip, I actually meant to
send it to you guys in the groupchat.
I forgot to do so.
But also, is there a better wayto do this?
Or is it just continuing toteach defensive players hey, you
know, you mentioned all theways that they have that
(32:16):
defensive players avoid thatpenalty or attempt to avoid that
penalty.
I even saw, I think in one ofthe sacks that trayvon walker
get like as soon as he wrappedup cj stroud.
He is immediately on the groundputting his hands up because he
doesn't want to, you know, getany penalty for falling on the
quarterback or anything likethat.
So I wanted to to get yourthoughts on the Rex Ryan thing
and see if you had heard himtalk about that, because again,
(32:38):
just does not seem like afeasible fix to what's happening
here.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Well, I'll start by saying this man, if it was up to
Rex Ryan let's say Rex Ryan wasa commissioner or a key figure
in the NFL If it was up to him,it'll be and I'm not making a
joke about this, I'm deadserious when I say this It'll be
probably a CTE-driven lead.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
At least the open season on quarterbacks anyway,
right, yeah, we shouldn't,exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Because he's one of those coaches from the old
school mold right, he's from theBrian Billet tree.
He's from that mold of tough,hard nose and we all seen a Rex
Ryan defense and how it looked,especially back then, when they
didn't protect quarterbacks, asyou said, Phillips quote unquote
open season on quarterbacks,and you know, that's just kind
(33:27):
of the cloth that he's cut fromit, that's just kind of like him
not willing to let go of thosetimes, right, of physical
football.
And football can still bephysical without players taking
the punishment that they took.
And I think what happenedsomewhere down the road, man?
I mean the owners realized likehey, man, our quarterbacks are
(33:49):
getting abused a little bit toomuch and of course it's for the
wrong reasons.
When you talk about the owners,they're trying to protect their
pockets, right, and theirinvestment, and they're trying
to protect the attraction forfootball which is the
quarterbacks, and that's why therules are the way they are now.
But I digress from my point,man.
But yeah, man, you can't reallytake what rex ryan says
(34:13):
seriously, because he's justfrom that old school of football
where, if it was up to him,like people will be getting
straight up bill goldberg on thesideline.
And then what was your?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
it was another part to it that you asked down that
I'm blanking out on here just,do you think that there is any
solution to kind of eitherprotect the quarterback more,
because I do agree that thesliding motion obviously does
open up, you know, the back ofthe head to injury, whether it
be in this instance with allShire, where I think it was a
(34:45):
dirty play, but also instanceswhere it is accidental, which I
do think you can find exampleswhere that has happened.
But is there some sort ofsolution here?
I mean, obviously, like we'veseen the Guardian cap more often
, but that's we've only reallyseen guys wear that that are
coming out of the, you know, outof the concussion protocol.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Right, yeah, well, I will say this, man.
They have made significantprogress on protecting
quarterbacks and in most casesthat we've seen, it is working
to protect the quarterback.
Now what that leads to is whatI said earlier it's a little
unfair that you're protectingquarterbacks more than you're
(35:25):
protecting other players.
But that's just where the gameis now.
But but for the most part, whenyou look at like 75% of the
quarterback slides these days,or probably even more, they
don't end the way that the hiton Trevor Lawrence ended.
As a matter of fact, I sawplenty of slides throughout the
week watching other footballgames.
(35:46):
You know whether it was collegeor whether it was in the NFL
and none of them ended poorlyfor the most part.
For the quarterback you knownothing, nowhere near what we
saw happen with Trevor Lawrence.
So I think the rewiring ofdefensive players is actually
working slowly but surely, butin 75 to 80 or maybe more,
(36:09):
percent of the cases I believeis actually working.
You know again, we'll have thatdiscussion another day about
their protecting quarterbacksbetter than other players.
But I think that the defendersare recognizing like hey, I
can't go in here full speed atthe quarterback right Now.
There are some plays wherethings can still happen in terms
(36:33):
of an injury, especially whenyou're in a position like when
you're trying to defend everyblade of grass.
Right, you know you're tryingto stop somebody from getting a
very crucial first down, right,and like your reaction time and
all of that stuff kind of is, Iguess I would say I don't want
to say goes out of the window,is I guess I would say I don't
(36:53):
want to say goes out of thewindow, but you're not thinking
about it at a time where you'retrying to, like, defend somebody
from a crucial first down, orif you're the quarterback trying
to get a crucial first down.
But yeah, I mean, I think theyare on to something with how
they are protecting quarterbacks.
I do think there are someinstances where a quarterback
gets hit in the pocket that theycan handle a little bit better
(37:16):
with this whole thing of thatbody area you have to hit the
quarterback.
It's times where a quarterbackwill move the slightest inch and
you were intending to hit thebody and you hit something else,
right, like I think they needto look into trying to maybe do
something for that and thosekind of instances need to look
into trying to maybe dosomething for that and those
kind of instances.
But when it comes to thesliding thing, um, I think
they're on to something and Ijust think, like the players you
(37:39):
know, in most cases unlike alshahir just have to be reflect,
receptive to what's beingcoached in terms of protecting
the quarterback yeah, that'sgood point.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
It's not like we don't see quarterback sliding
all throughout the week, everyweekend, and not even with just
the NFL, but also throughoutcollege football.
So, yeah, that is a very goodpoint, but, yeah, obviously very
, very ugly scene in terms ofwhat went down.
Wishing Trevor the best, and,yeah, to go back to what you
(38:11):
were saying at the beginning ofthis conversation, it doesn't
matter now, but yeah, I agree,they should have shut Trevor
down.
They should have shut Trevordown for the season.
Anyway, maybe take thatdecision out of his hands.
Obviously, you know he wants togo out there and compete.
He wants to go out there and bethere with his teammates.
That is very, very clear.
And you, you know one thing youdefinitely cannot deny now and
(38:34):
and you know we talked about inhis absence in terms of what his
, what him being there means asfar as football production on
the field.
But there is one thing that youcan no longer argue is that
Trevor is the leader of thisfootball team.
When you look at the reactionthat we got after the hit
happened, those guys, thoseteammates, those Trev is their
(38:55):
guy and I know there wasn't anydoubt about that here on our end
, but there definitely was likesome chatter, you know, over the
course of the season and youknow from from some other people
.
So, yeah, anything else youwant to mention in terms of this
incident here?
Jay, obviously we'll, you know.
We wish him a speedy recovery.
Hope he comes back 100% nextyear.
(39:17):
But, trev, if you find yourselflistening to this podcast for
some reason, man, we are goodwith you just shutting it down
for the year and focusing on2025 and where we can get you,
you know, a new coach, maybesome new offensive linemen, some
new weapons, new offensivecoordinators, new general
manager.
But, hey, enjoy the holidaywith your friend, with your
(39:37):
family.
Man, you're about to be afather, like all of this.
Like, take this into accountand we will be okay with you
shutting it down for theremainder of the year.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yes, please, trevor, shut it down, man.
And yeah, spend spend all yourenergy on your family and then,
whatever the rest of the energyyou want to spend, spend that on
Len Shotkin.
No, you want to get DougPeterson and Trent Baalke up out
of there.
Yeah, nothing.
Well, I will say this Phil, Iguess we can kind of talk about
this, since we're talking aboutreactions to the hit.
(40:08):
What do you think of like DougPeterson and what he said about
the hit and?
Um, just, you know theaftermath in terms of his
statements oh, yeah, that'sright, thanks for bringing that.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah, I totally forgot about that.
Yeah, um, also, again, can'twait to get Doug up out of here,
another former player, so heknows how things go.
You know a former quarterbackat that.
So for him to come out and, andyou know, tell people that, hey
, his guys need to be smarter.
And, um, you know a formerquarterback at that.
So for him to come out and youknow, tell people that, hey, his
guys need to be smarter.
And you know we shouldn't beescalating Again.
Just nonsense that you don't,you don't want to hear in the,
(40:44):
maybe behind closed doorsthey're telling their players
hey, go to bat for your guys.
So for him to come out thereand say that, and you know, not
necessarily have his playersback, just adding more fuel to
the fire.
And another reason as to why Icannot wait for him to get up
out of here.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Same.
You have a, you know, texansorganization who's batting for
their player who did the wrongthing.
Meanwhile, doug can't bat forhis player who did the right
thing, like, who had the rightreaction.
So, yeah, man, that just kindof stood out to me.
And, as you said, man like wecan't get him up out of here
quick enough.
Man, like, how does that feelfor the locker room?
(41:23):
Right, that your coach won'twho was a former quarterback, by
the way won't bat for you, youknow, defending your own
quarterback, essentially thefranchise quarterback for this
team.
But I guess that goes back towhat we've said.
Maybe Doug Peterson justdoesn't care much for Trevor
Lawrence, man, you know, andmaybe that stems from the whole
situation with Press Taylor.
Maybe, you know, maybe Trevor'snot happy with Press Taylor and
(41:46):
, as a result, doug is takingsome kind of offense to it.
But you can tell something'snot right with that Doug
Peterson Trevor Lawrenceconnection.
And then the last thing I wantto mention too is Wigg kind of
mentioned this Shout-outs to TWigg on his podcast.
He thinks that the way that DougPeterson reacted and what he
said kind of gives Trent Baalkea way to go to shotgun and be
(42:09):
like see, look, it wasn't me, itisn't me, it's clearly the
coach type of thing.
What are your thoughts on that?
Real quick, I'll get mythoughts on it.
I don't think that's the case,because I think to some degree
Trent Baalke had to do with theprocess of hiring Doug Peterson,
so I don't think thatnecessarily should give him an
(42:34):
out in terms of this situation,because part of the reason why
we have Doug Peterson is becauseof Trent Baalke and we didn't
cast the net that we wanted tofor coaches during the coaching
candidate search that we wantedto.
We had to settle with somebodywho would settle with Trent
Baalke.
So Trent's really the reasonthat Doug is here essentially,
and that's where I am with that.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
I wouldn't put it past him because Trimbulky is a
snake, right.
So I understand what T-Wig istrying to say, because I think
it's well within the realm ofpossibility for somebody who
operates like Trimbulky, forsomebody who you know people
around the league clearly do notwant to work with.
I could certainly see him dothat.
(43:12):
I remember there were thosereports coming from somewhere.
Like these don't come fromnowhere, right.
They originate from somewherewhere the reports were coming
out saying that maybe he'sgetting in in shot cons ear
saying, hey, I can deliver billBelichick, right?
That doesn't appear out ofnowhere.
For the most part of that's theone thing I've learned from
watching a lot of insiders alsolearning from you.
(43:33):
Um, I, I don't.
I don't think that's the caseeither, but I could definitely
see it coming out of his mouth,or him at least insinuating to
shot con that that is the case,if that makes sense right, right
.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
yeah, I just wanted to get your take.
I also wanted to talk about theWalker Little thing, but we'll
save that for another podcast.
Well, that'll be another greattopic that we can save for
another podcast.
So we can wrap this one up.
Man, as I said, you can followme, james at Sportsground,
underscore Don on Twitter.
Phil at Phil, the FilipinoTouchdownJadwarscom, the website
(44:12):
Twitter handle fortouchdownjadwars at tdjadwarspod
, and shout outs to SeatGeek aswell.
Go ahead, phil, you can take itfrom here in terms of anything
else that we need to add toclose the show.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah, that will be it .
Obviously, we're, you know,emotions running high here,
especially when it comes to ourplayers and Trevor's health and,
honestly, the health of anybodyon this team.
It doesn't matter who it is.
You know, these are our guysand we want to make sure that
everybody is doing well andplaying as safely as possible.
You know, at the end of the day, what Alshayer did was dirty,
(44:47):
and I do think he is a dirtyplayer and we have plenty of
evidence to confirm that.
And just once again emphasizingTrevor if you have found your
way to the touchdown Jaguarspodcast, shut it down.
Enjoy the holidays, enjoy thefact that you're about to be a
dad and that your life's aboutto change forever.
And we'll see you in 2025,brother.
(45:10):
So take care of yourself.
But no, that's it for thisweek's episode.
Jay, once again, everythingwill be in the show notes of
this episode.
Everything you need in terms ofthe link tree link is right
there.
So thank you all, so, very,very much.
That is my co-host, jamesJohnson, and I am Phil Smith,
and do not forget to tune in toTouchdown Jaguars for each and
every Jaguar touchdown, andwe'll see you next time.
(45:31):
Take care, folks.
Hey everyone, Phil here, Just a quick editor's note
that I wanted to add, just soyou guys know.
This episode was recorded alittle bit earlier in the day,
on Wednesday, December 4th,before the news was announced
that Trevor was going to be outfor the remainder of the season.
So you'll hear us mention hey,Trev, go ahead and shut it down
for the rest of the year.
This is before we knew thatdecision was going to be made,
(00:22):
so just want to let you guysknow.
Enjoy the episode.
Oh my God, Jaguars Play actionUpstairs wide open.
(01:10):
Tommy Bohannon TouchdownJacksonville.
Looking for Jimmy in the endzone Touchdown Jaguars.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Welcome to the TouchdownJaguars podcast.
Here are your hosts, JamesJohnson and Phil Smith.
(01:34):
Hey everyone, welcome back tothe Touchdown Jaguars podcast.
I am your co-host, Phil Smith,and joining us, as always, is
your other co-host, JamesJohnson and Jay.
We are here recording on the4th of December, my birthday
actually.
So shout out to those of youthat have reached out and wished
me a happy birthday.
We are.
Even though it is my birthday,Jay, we are still here working
(01:54):
because we have a lot to discusswhen it comes to the Jaguars.
We'll see if this is a briefepisode, but I'm sure we have a
ton to say about what went downover the weekend, and not so
much about the final score, inwhich the Jaguars did
unfortunately lose again, but,Jay, everything that has come
out since then and everythingsurrounding the incident that
happened between the Jaguars andthe Texans here in Duval County
(02:18):
.
So, regardless, Jay, excited tobe back here with you as we are
just kind of counting down thedays until the season has ended.
But unfortunately we werethrown a very violent wrinkle in
this waiting process here overthe weekend.
So looking forward todiscussing all of this with you,
even though it was a very, veryugly scene down at Everbank
(02:40):
Field.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, man.
Well, first and foremost, happybirthday, as I have already
said, man, and yeah, you know,holidays have never kind of
stopped us from recording man.
So I appreciate you being hereon your big day, man, and hope
you enjoy it.
And here's to many, many more.
And, as you said, yeah, you'reright, this episode was thrown
(03:05):
an ugly wrinkle when consideringthe situation that went down on
the field, which we'll talkabout in depth.
Not just that, but like theaftermath of it too, and you
know what has transpired inpress conferences after and what
have you.
Of course, you know, as always,you like to get the win against
the Texas, especiallyconsidering what happened in the
(03:27):
game.
Right, that would have been anice win to have, and me and you
, you know, we kind of talkedabout that last week where we
wouldn't be surprised if wecould win that game.
And the game was winnable andit was, you know, close.
It didn't really get too out ofhand, even when the injury took
place.
(03:47):
But yeah, man, man, nonetheless,it made for a interesting
episode when you take intoconsideration what transpired on
the field.
Can't wait to talk about it,but of course, before we do that
, we always got to plug somestuff, right?
Of course, you can follow me atsportsgrind, underscore down on
twitter, ph Phil at Phil theFilipino on Twitter, and also
you can follow our website,which is touchdownjadwarscom,
(04:11):
the official Twitter handle forthe podcast TDJadwarsPod, and I
think I covered everything.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, everything you need will be in the Linktree
link of this and every singleepisode, so make sure you check
that out, along with that promocode, touchdown Jaguars you can
use over on SeatGeek and saveyourself $20 on your first
purchase with them.
So yeah, jay, let's go aheadand jump into it here, as we are
anxious to discuss the eventsof this past Sunday.
As far as the seemingly lessimportant things, the Jaguars
(04:44):
did lose to the Houston Texans23-20.
There was a comeback effortbetween the third and the fourth
quarter.
It was a pretty quiet game interms of the, I would say,
probably the first threequarters.
To be honest with you, six tothree at halftime.
The Houston Texans continue tokind of be this polarizing team
(05:04):
I believe I mean now.
Granted, I've tried to stayaway from more overarching
statements when it comes toteams that I just obviously am
not keeping up with in my olderage, as we have done this longer
and longer.
So all I can really do, jay, islook at the eye test in terms
of the Houston Texans and saythey haven't really been that
(05:25):
impressive this year, where, onthe opposite side of things,
we're starting to see we talkedabout this last week the
Indianapolis Colts starting toput some things together.
Anthony Richardson is lookinggood.
He was the reason they won thatgame over the weekend and you
know, obviously, with theirseason on the line, they made a
big choice in terms of coachingand that worked out for them.
(05:49):
But nonetheless, houston comesin and they've had this kind of
strange season.
Cj Shroud seems to haveregressed a little bit.
Some people are talking abouthaving this conversation about
the Houston Texans, right, andare they really as good as we
expected them to be?
Are they underperforming?
Sophomore slump, all of that.
So before we get to the mostobvious stuff, jay, let's talk
about the football on the field.
I once again, as has been thestory I feel like this entire
(06:11):
season was traveling on the dayof the game, so I did not get to
see it.
So interested to see, in termsof the football side of things,
what your takeaways were fromthe game.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, we'll keep it brief because I only saw
three-fourths of it and I'mstill watching the film as we
speak, or I'll continue to watchthe film after this episode.
But yeah, I've seen aboutthree-four quarters of it and my
biggest takeaway from it was itwas relatively quiet.
The first two quarters theywere really just exchanging
(06:44):
field goals.
You know, um, and you know, Iwould say, cj stroud, as you
mentioned, actually there weresome plays he maybe left on the
field right where he could havemaybe gotten rid of the ball or
not taking a sack here and there.
And you know there was somelike covered sack things and
things of that nature where youlook at it and, like you know,
you say like dang c CJ, youdidn't have to take that sack.
(07:08):
I guess for the sake of playingthe Jacksonville Jaguars, we
won't complain about stuff likethat.
Right, we'll take any help wecan get from a quarterback.
But after that, I think whathappened in that second half at
least, again, I only seen like amajority of the third quarter,
not the fourth quarter, butthat's kind of when Joe Mixon
took over, looks like theJaguars really didn't have any
(07:29):
answers for him in the run gameand you know he made plays in
the passing game too.
So I think, like you know, if Ihad to guess that continued in
the fourth quarter, I'll, youknow, talk about that more on
Twitter when I see the fourthquarter, uh.
But I think that's what it is,man.
After that half the first half,joe Mixon took over and kind of
(07:51):
propelled this team to wherethey needed to be and I'm
talking about the Texans here,not us uh to get the victory
over the Jacksonville Jaguarsyeah, I had been keeping up with
the timeline a little bitthroughout the day and seeing
that Trevor had also kind ofleft some stuff out there on the
(08:11):
field obviously had theinterception.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
There was certainly the narrative that, without some
overthrows and misses, brianThomas has himself yet another
big day and he still ended uphaving a really solid day four
catches, 76 yards and atouchdown.
Parker Washington also had asolid day himself six catches,
103 yards.
But yeah, ultimately they fellshort in their comeback effort.
(08:37):
And yeah, you know, I'm veryinterested to see if Houston,
you know, finds themselves inthe same position that we were
in last year, where you knowit's a win and get in.
And actually, what is there?
Do they play Indy on the finalday of the year?
No, they play Tennessee,although I think we close with
Indianapolis, if I remembercorrectly.
(08:59):
I don't have the schedule uphere in front of me, but it will
be interesting because Houstonwill be in that position where
they need to beat Tennessee andIndianapolis will be playing us
at home.
So we'll see how it goes.
But yeah, jay, I've just beennot overly impressed with the
Houston Texans and obviouslywe're going to come off as
homers, but just the way thatthey've performed and, you know,
(09:21):
with CJ Shroud coming into theseason obviously with a ton of
hype, and deservedly so.
He had an outstanding rookieseason and he's going to be kind
of the standard thatquarterbacks are going to be
held to going forward as far asrookies.
I mean look at Caleb Williams,that happened to him this year.
But yeah, jay, just been alittle underwhelmed with them,
although I will say Joe Mixonhas been having himself a solid
game and I had a feeling thatwas going to be a big pickup for
(09:43):
them heading into this season.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
So, yeah, to add on to what you were saying, phil,
the last divisional game in theAFC South for the Houston Texans
is the Titans.
That's week 18.
And that game, I believe, hasyet to be determined in terms of
the time not the score but thetime.
So that's what they have leftin terms of the remainder of the
season.
And yeah, to add on what yousaid about Trevor, that was
(10:11):
another thing that I forgot tomention.
Yeah, he, you know that first,I think, like drive, he looked
pretty good and then after thathe kind of fell off.
He was, you know, missed timein some throws overthrows just
wide of the receiver, you know,just to the left or to the right
of the receiver, depending onwhat kind of routes they were
running.
Missed BTJ on a big one that heunderthrew and the safety was
(10:37):
able, or the cornerback was able, to undercut it because it hung
in the air a little too long.
So you know he was showing theeffects of, you know, probably
not practicing as much as hecould have.
I know he practiced that weekof, but you know he was dealing
with the issue the week before,the injury issue the week before
(10:58):
.
So that probably maybe playedinto it.
Not making any excuses for him,but I'm kind of not shocked
that he looked the way that hedid when considering he was
coming off an injury and maybedidn't practice as much as he
should have.
But I guess the moreinteresting thing heading
forward is do they shut him down?
I think they should.
I think they should have shuthim down period before the
(11:20):
Texans game and he shouldn'thave played in the Texans game.
But that's neither here orneither there.
Going back to the Texans, yeah,I agree with you.
I think if they're in any otherdivisions that it will be a
struggle for them.
But luckily they're in adivision where, you know, trent
Baalke constructed a team andDoug Peterson doesn't know how
(11:42):
to coach and has Press Taylor ashis offensive coordinator.
And the Texans or, excuse me,the Titans are kind of young and
upcoming.
You know they're trying to findtheir way.
They have a young quarterbackand you know the Colts are I
don't know what.
What's the issue with the Colts?
That's?
That's a good question.
In terms of what's their issue.
I guess it kind of falls withfalls along the lines of the
(12:03):
Titans.
They have a young quarterbackwho you know he only played in a
limited amount of games interms of before he came to the
NFL.
We knew he would be a project,so that's probably what's
stalling them when you look atit.
So yeah, man, I think we vastlyoverrated the Texans heading
into this season.
(12:24):
I think they still win thedivision nonetheless, but I
think when they get into theplayoffs there'll be a team that
you know their issues will showup relatively fast in the
postseason.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Yeah, I agree with you.
When you're looking at theother teams that are going to be
in contention that they may runinto when it comes to the AFC
specifically, I mean I thinkyou're looking at them being
maybe even the weakest and mostflawed team.
I mean the Broncos are playingvery well, the Chargers, and
(12:58):
then you have the Ravens.
We'll see how the Ravens finish.
Like there is a little bit ofconcern there on my end.
I don't know how you feel aboutBaltimore J and just kind of how
they're, um, they're kind ofsputtering here towards the end
of the season, which is a realbummer.
I mean, I, you and I are bigfans of Lamar Jackson, but when
you look at all the other teamsthat are that they could run
into in the AFC obviously KansasCity and Buffalo, those are
(13:19):
outliers.
Pittsburgh, I think, isdefinitely better than them, and
then also, like I said, thoseother three playoff teams the
chargers, ravens and broncos, Ithink are better than them.
Um, and then we'll see.
Like you know, obviously thecolts are catching them.
So just to kind of pivot here.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
When it comes to the playoff picture in general, jay,
I mean, do you see houstonbeating any of those teams, la
baltimore or denver right nowthey may can beat the Ravens and
, as you said, the Ravens arekind of sputtering, but the
Ravens sputtered into the season, you know, like I think they
started with two or three lossesin the season and they kind of
(13:55):
picked it up a little bit afterthat and now they're back to
where they were.
So, you know, maybe the Ravensthey can be in the Ravens
defenses and all that great.
So if they end up in a matchupwith them, that could favor the
Texans.
But these other teams that youmentioned, I think they have a
(14:16):
great chance to beat the TexasChargers.
What they're doing with JKDobbins, I think they'll be able
to run the ball pretty well,which you need to do in the
postseason anyway.
On um, on the Texans and youknow Ladd McConkie is adding
some things to the passing gamethere too as well.
Go dogs right.
I remember a lot of people werehigh on him and what he would
(14:38):
offer for NFL offense and it'sshowing early and often.
So so yeah, no, I agree, man,like I think of those teams,
though I think the Ravens, justwhen you look at where they are
defensively and just kind of howthey been a rollercoaster this
off season.
That's the one team that youknow.
If you maybe probably put somemoney on it, you know I would
(15:00):
maybe go with the Texans in thatgame.
I guess we'll see how things goat the end of the regular
season we can kind of gauge thata little better and who has
momentum going into thepostseason.
But the Ravens are the one teamthat I would say if you're a
Houston Texas fan you might wantto end up in a matchup with
them yeah, of course, if theywin the division, they will host
a playoff game.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
So well, they would get the highest seed, though, if
you kind of look at it rightnow, because obviously Kansas
City, buffalo, pittsburgh, andthen, if things, you know, stay
the way they are, they would getthe top seed in terms of the
wildcard, which right now Ibelieve would be the Chargers.
So, yeah, that might not be themost favorable matchup, but who
knows?
I mean, there's a lot offootball left.
We were talking about four moregames and a lot can happen in
(15:43):
that four game span.
So we will see.
But, jay, all that to say as weget into the primary topic of
this episode is just theabsolutely vicious hit by Aziz
Alshayer of the Houston Texansto Trevor Lawrence.
I remember again, I was inOrlando and just getting those
text messages from the groupchat and also getting the
(16:04):
notifications on the socialmedia.
It's just an absolutelydisgusting display of
quote-unquote football byAlshayer and there's been a lot
of fallout coming out of thishit and coming out of what
happened over the weekend.
First, let's start with what weknow now as of December 4th,
(16:24):
because he has been suspendedfor three games for his illegal
hit on Trevor Lawrence.
The league cited quote repeatedviolations of rules intended to
protect the health and safetyof players and promote
sportsmanship.
Nfl Vice President of FootballOperations, john Runyon, issued
Shire's suspension and actuallywrote him the following letter,
(16:45):
which the NFL did publish Duringyour game against the
Jacksonville Jaguars on December1st, with four minutes and 20
seconds remaining in the secondquarter, you were involved in a
play that the league considersunacceptable and a serious
violation of the playing rules.
Video shows you striking thehead and neck area of Jaguars
(17:05):
quarterback Trevor Lawrenceafter he clearly goes down in a
feet-first slide.
You led with your forearm andhelmet and delivered a forceful
blow to the head and neck areaof your opponent when you had
time and space to avoid suchcontact.
After the illegal hit, youproceeded to engage in a brawl,
which you escalated when youpulled an opponent down to the
ground by his face mask.
(17:25):
After the referee announcedthat you were disqualified for
the hit and your unsportsmanlikeacts, you removed your helmet
and reengaged with your opponentwhile walking down and across
the field, which started anotherphysical confrontation near the
end zone.
Your lack of sportsmanship andrespect for the game of football
and all those who play, coachand enjoy watching.
It is troubling and does notreflect the core values of the
(17:48):
NFL.
Your continued disregard forNFL playing rules puts the
health and safety of both youand your opponents in jeopardy
and will not be tolerated.
And that's the thing withAlshair right, that came out a
lot after he made a statementonline, but also people,
specifically Houston Texans fans, defending him and saying you
know, this isn't the type ofplayer he is.
(18:08):
D'amico Ryan's coming out andprotecting him and defending him
.
But no, this is who Alshayer isas far as a player.
And listen, he was with D'AmicoRyan's in San Francisco, so I'm
sure there is a sense ofloyalty there, and it's also
your guy, san Francisco.
So I'm sure there is a sense ofloyalty there, and it's also
your guy, so you want to protecthim and probably in that moment
, probably trying to soften theblow, knowing the suspension was
coming down the pipeline.
(18:29):
But all this is BS man.
I didn't want to hear anythingthat he had to say in terms of
an apology, the whole thing withme.
That really escalates this andI think for a lot of people, jay
is he's leading with theforearm right and there's a
whole nother discussion I wantto have with you as a former
football player, when it comesto the slide, when it comes to
protecting the quarterback, whenit comes to all of these things
(18:50):
because all of this stuff canbe people are trying to point
out that, you know, maybe weneed to teach quarterbacks a
different way.
We'll discuss all that here ina second.
But I want to talk about yourinitial reaction to this, your
reaction to the suspension, andthen we'll talk about some of
the fallout here in just amoment, because there has been a
lot, and there's also been alot of nonsense coming from a
(19:10):
few different parties.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Right, right.
And when you say formerfootball player, let's be clear
to the people, because peopleare gonna be like oh, jay played
on the college level, he'stalking about high school
football, still more than Iplayed, though.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Still more football than I ever played.
So outside of flag.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Right, right, but yeah, I think, like in a
nutshell and I watched it playedabout eight times because you
know you want to be selective ofwhat you're saying and careful
about what you say and the onething that I kept coming back to
with the hit right field isthat Al Shaheer is to me, he
(19:47):
seems to be a player that'sover-aggressive, right, because
I go back to this.
What I kept going back to is,for years now, the NFL has been
coaching players and thisshouldn't necessarily be the
case.
Right, quarterbacks shouldn'tget hit any softer than any
other player.
But that's where we are intoday's NFL.
(20:07):
The NFL, the owners, the powersthat be, want you to hit the
quarterback softer than otherplayers and they want you to hit
the quarterback with morecaution than other players.
So you know, that's where weare right now, and they've been
training players for years onthe defensive side of how to
approach these hits when itcomes to hitting a quarterback
(20:31):
bringing a quarterback down, notlanding on them, you know, not
hitting them in the head, nothitting them outside of the from
the neck to the body range, youknow, hitting them outside of
that range.
All of these things have beenin place for years.
So Al Shaheer has been gettingcoaching and training on how to
(20:53):
hit quarterbacks and how toapproach a quarterback for years
, for years.
And for him to go into that hitwhich I paused it, and I paused
it before he actually began totake an action against Trevor
Lawrence, and I mean to me eachtime I paused it, it looks like
(21:14):
it's at least four to five yardsbetween him and Trevor when
Trevor started to slide, withthat amount of space between you
and the quarterback.
What I keep coming back to is Idon't understand how, with that
amount of space between the two, it led to Al Shayer diving at
(21:37):
him with a forearm.
I could see maybe it endingwith Trevor maybe getting hurt,
but taking a forearm to the headfull speed with the defender
diving at you.
I'm confused as to how that waswhat the reaction was for Al
Shayer.
And another thing, too, is Iwatch reactions a lot in
(21:58):
football Me and you talk aboutthis a lot, right, phil?
But you can tell a lot by howpeople react after a play.
That being said, when he hitTrevor also, what kind of made
me skeptical on his intent was alot of times what you'll see
with these hits, with defenderswhen they hit the quarterback
(22:18):
they'll try and lay off right.
It'll be some kind of reactionthat showed that they weren't
trying to make it as forceful asit could be, right.
You'll see sometimes a defenderturn his back so they're not
going into the quarterback, orthe person with the ball full
speed.
Sometimes you'll see I evenseen Calais Campbell one time
coddle a quarterback and keeplike basically keeping him from
(22:41):
falling to the ground head first.
You know like which.
You know I was like at the timeI was like wow, I never thought
I'd see the day where adefensive end holds a
quarterback up from hitting theground.
But you know that was his wayof making it not look as
forceful, right.
So you'll see these things,these actions during the hit or
after the hit or a little bitbefore the hit that would
(23:01):
indicate like the defenders nottrying to hit the quarterback
with full force Did not see thatwith this hit I saw somebody
leading with their forearmdiving full speed.
I didn't see him trying to breakhis fall.
You know, a lot of times yousee that right field when you're
tackling a quarterback.
You'll see defenders trying tobreak the fall or they'll do the
(23:22):
little gator roll motion sothey don't land completely on
the quarterback.
I didn't see any of theseactions that show he was trying
to reduce the force.
That he was coming at TrevorLawrence is what I'm trying to
say.
That too was a red flag to me.
And when you add in his reactionafterwards, the over-aggression
(23:44):
afterwards which I mean, Iguess you know we all can't
really speak on that situationuntil we're in it, you know,
maybe we'd react the same aswell if a whole football team
was trying to come at us orwhatever the case may be.
But the over-aggression and himgoing back for more, as they
mentioned in the statement, asJohn Runyon mentioned in the
statement, trying to go back formore that was the incident with
(24:06):
Brandon Scherf.
It didn't lead to anything, butthat's probably what they were
talking about there.
For him to go back for morejust shows me and puts me back
at my initial point that I saidat the beginning of this
statement.
That I said at the beginning ofthis statement.
We're looking at a player that'soveraggressive and that's not
receptive and not taking in, isnot taking in the coaching in
(24:27):
terms of how you hit andapproach a quarterback, because
you can't tell me that theTexans teach that.
I know D'Amico Ryans has saidwhat he said and their GM said
what he said, but you can't tellme that the Texans teach that,
because who teaches somethingthat would cost the team penalty
yardage?
Essentially, we're just lookingat a player who hasn't been
(24:47):
receptive of the new rules andhow to hit a quarterback and the
result was trevor lawrencegetting severely injured, and
that's where I am with it right,and that's kind of a good segue
here is because you mentioned,you know, demico ryan.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I didn't see the full Nick Cesario quote, but I did
see that kind of making rounds.
But let's talk about that firstbecause you know, obviously,
d'amico Ryan's former player avery physical player, mind you,
a guy that we are obviously veryfamiliar with being Jaguar fans
and just fans of football andthe AFC South in general, for
(25:29):
him to call out the Jaguars andtell them, you know, tell the
media that they then wereresponsible for escalating that
event and making it worse andkind of drawing it out.
Obviously I'm paraphrasing here.
I don't have the exact quote infront of him, but I do know
that he did blame Jacksonvillefor the events escalating
further than they already wereabout to escalate.
That's BS, right?
You're not telling me.
Actually, I've listened to quitea bit of former players talk
(25:51):
about this over the last coupleof days, specifically Chris
Canty and Harry Douglas over onESPN.
I listen to the Chris Canty'sradio show in the morning,
typically every day that I takemy daughter to school, so I
listen to him a lot Also.
That's a pretty pro Jaguar showIf anyone's looking for a kind
of like a mainstream media show.
I just want to shout out onSportsmanlike, on ESPN.
(26:13):
It's not the best, but it's OK.
But anyway, backtracking, theytalked about D'Amico Ryan's
comments.
I believe it was yesterday.
They talked about D'AmicoRyan's comments, I believe it
was yesterday, and both tookissue with it, because both of
them stated that if this everhappens to not even just your
quarterback, but even anotherone of your players, another one
(26:34):
of your teammates, that is theappropriate reaction.
And if it is not your reaction,then you could possibly get
thrown off a team.
If you're not going to go tobat for your brothers out here
and we understand that this is aviolent game, right, they
signed up for this.
It is a violent sport.
But if something like thathappens, that is not within the
(26:56):
brotherhood.
The unwritten rulebook offootball.
That is the appropriatereaction.
Shout out to Jerrion Jones.
Shout out to Brandon theappropriate reaction.
Shout out to Jerry and Jones.
Shout out to Brandon Scherf.
Shout out to, obviously, evanIngram, who was there first.
Shout out to Brian Thomas Jr,who was heated.
Shout out to everybody on theroster for reacting the way that
they did.
They reacted appropriately and,honestly, I'm surprised more
(27:19):
punches weren't thrown.
Maybe they were and Jerry andJones was just the only one that
got caught, but they reactedproperly.
And I guarantee you, if, d'amicoRyans you pointed this out
before we started, jay if thiswas CJ Stroud that this happened
to, then yeah, if that's howHouston then reacted, I'd be
like, yeah, that's how they'resupposed to react.
They're supposed to, they aresupposed to protect their guy,
(27:42):
they're supposed to look out forhim.
So for D'Amico Ryan's a formerplayer, a former linebacker,
mind you to come out and saythat is incredibly frustrating.
And I have a couple morequestions for you here on the
others, uh, a little bit later.
In terms of what, the future ofprotecting the quarterback,
because Rex Ryan also made somecomments that kind of like
frustrated me.
I'll ask you about that here injust a moment.
(28:03):
But yeah, jay, just expand alittle bit more on that.
Again, d'amico Ryan's if theroles were reversed, he'd be up
in arms about what happened tohis quarterback.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
So I don't like him calling us out for making things
worse oh yeah, he, heabsolutely would if the roles
were reversed, and if that wascj stroud, it'll be a more of a,
it would be more, uh, one ofthose issues brought more to the
light too, because stroud is amore popular quarterback than
trevor lawrence.
(28:33):
But that's neither here neitherthere.
The question is you know aboutdemico ryan's comment and, yeah,
you're right, it's absolutelybs man, I have seen coaches and
you know I'm not watching.
You know me, phil, I watched aton of football documentaries
and I watched a ton of, you know, just football mic'd up moments
and anything you can find onNFL network or YouTube.
(28:55):
Man, and just, I would say justabout, not even just about all
coaches that witnessed somethinglike that would react the same
way if it was their quarterbackor one of their other players,
whether it was an offensiveplayer, defensive player getting
hit on the sideline later thanthey should have.
I can recall one time, as amatter of fact, just to kind of
(29:16):
reflect on the reactions thatcoaches have when that happens
to one of their players.
I was watching the Jaguarsmic'd up moment and this was
back in the Jack Del Rio days.
I forgot what quarterback itwas.
It might have been DavidGarrard.
He got hit on the sidelineright near Jack Del Rio.
Jack Del Rio ran to the refereescreaming at him hey, that's my
(29:39):
quarterback, that's myquarterback.
So coaches not only just playersthat we saw out there shout
outs to all of the players thatreacted the way that they
reacted, the ones that youmentioned Brenton Strange was
one of them too.
But not only do players reactthat way, coaches are wired to
react that way, which is kind ofshocking why Doug Peterson
(30:01):
didn't react to it as well.
We'll come back to that laterdown the road as well, but I can
remember Jack Del Rio straightup running to the referee
screaming at him.
That's my quarterback.
And for us to hear D'Amico Ryansay something that just kind of
just embodies the exact opposite, it's just BS.
You're just trying to defend aguy that was in the wrong, and I
(30:22):
understand it, I get it.
You're just defending yourplayer.
But the word choice there andwhat you said could have been a
little bit better, because weall know if the roles were
reversed that was CJ's droughtyou would take heat to it, all
of your coaching staff would,all of the players would, and it
(30:42):
would be the same thing theJacksonville Jaguars did, if not
worse.
So that's how I feel on that.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Right.
And then to transition to thisRex Ryan thing, because they
were talking about this on GetUp, which is their morning show
on television over on ESPN, andRex Ryan was making the point
that he's kind of fed up,essentially, with these
quarterbacks sliding andexposing themselves to risk and
(31:08):
exposing themselves to injury,to risk and exposing themselves
to injury, and he was trying tomake the point of, instead of,
you know, the quarterback slideand taking advantage of these
rules, that they need to startdiving head first, like at the
defender's legs or somethingalong those lines.
And this was another thing thatChris Canty and again, harry
Douglas shout out to them wereboth like no, this is also not a
(31:33):
great idea.
You're then exposing yourselfto getting taking a knee to the
head or even hurting thedefensive player.
You know the point of thisobviously is we don't want to
see anybody get hurt.
You know, obviously, in theyear where we've seen Tua go
through what he has gone seeingyour quarterback that you cover
go into that fencing positionand anybody go into that fencing
position, regardless of whoyou're rooting for, it's
(31:55):
terrifying, right jay, it's ascary sight.
So I wanted to get your thoughtson that, not only what rex ryan
had to say.
I don't know if you saw thefull clip, I actually meant to
send it to you guys in the groupchat.
I forgot to do so.
But also, is there a better wayto do this?
Or is it just continuing toteach defensive players hey, you
know, you mentioned all theways that they have that
(32:16):
defensive players avoid thatpenalty or attempt to avoid that
penalty.
I even saw, I think in one ofthe sacks that trayvon walker
get like as soon as he wrappedup cj stroud.
He is immediately on the groundputting his hands up because he
doesn't want to, you know, getany penalty for falling on the
quarterback or anything likethat.
So I wanted to to get yourthoughts on the Rex Ryan thing
and see if you had heard himtalk about that, because again,
(32:38):
just does not seem like afeasible fix to what's happening
here.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Well, I'll start by saying this man, if it was up to
Rex Ryan let's say Rex Ryan wasa commissioner or a key figure
in the NFL If it was up to him,it'll be and I'm not making a
joke about this, I'm deadserious when I say this It'll be
probably a CTE-driven lead.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
At least the open season on quarterbacks anyway,
right, yeah, we shouldn't,exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Because he's one of those coaches from the old
school mold right, he's from theBrian Billet tree.
He's from that mold of tough,hard nose and we all seen a Rex
Ryan defense and how it looked,especially back then, when they
didn't protect quarterbacks, asyou said, Phillips quote unquote
open season on quarterbacks,and you know, that's just kind
(33:27):
of the cloth that he's cut fromit, that's just kind of like him
not willing to let go of thosetimes, right, of physical
football.
And football can still bephysical without players taking
the punishment that they took.
And I think what happenedsomewhere down the road, man?
I mean the owners realized likehey, man, our quarterbacks are
(33:49):
getting abused a little bit toomuch and of course it's for the
wrong reasons.
When you talk about the owners,they're trying to protect their
pockets, right, and theirinvestment, and they're trying
to protect the attraction forfootball which is the
quarterbacks, and that's why therules are the way they are now.
But I digress from my point,man.
But yeah, man, you can't reallytake what rex ryan says
(34:13):
seriously, because he's justfrom that old school of football
where, if it was up to him,like people will be getting
straight up bill goldberg on thesideline.
And then what was your?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
it was another part to it that you asked down that
I'm blanking out on here just,do you think that there is any
solution to kind of eitherprotect the quarterback more,
because I do agree that thesliding motion obviously does
open up, you know, the back ofthe head to injury, whether it
be in this instance with allShire, where I think it was a
(34:45):
dirty play, but also instanceswhere it is accidental, which I
do think you can find exampleswhere that has happened.
But is there some sort ofsolution here?
I mean, obviously, like we'veseen the Guardian cap more often
, but that's we've only reallyseen guys wear that that are
coming out of the, you know, outof the concussion protocol.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Right, yeah, well, I will say this, man.
They have made significantprogress on protecting
quarterbacks and in most casesthat we've seen, it is working
to protect the quarterback.
Now what that leads to is whatI said earlier it's a little
unfair that you're protectingquarterbacks more than you're
(35:25):
protecting other players.
But that's just where the gameis now.
But but for the most part, whenyou look at like 75% of the
quarterback slides these days,or probably even more, they
don't end the way that the hiton Trevor Lawrence ended.
As a matter of fact, I sawplenty of slides throughout the
week watching other footballgames.
(35:46):
You know whether it was collegeor whether it was in the NFL
and none of them ended poorlyfor the most part.
For the quarterback you knownothing, nowhere near what we
saw happen with Trevor Lawrence.
So I think the rewiring ofdefensive players is actually
working slowly but surely, butin 75 to 80 or maybe more,
(36:09):
percent of the cases I believeis actually working.
You know again, we'll have thatdiscussion another day about
their protecting quarterbacksbetter than other players.
But I think that the defendersare recognizing like hey, I
can't go in here full speed atthe quarterback right Now.
There are some plays wherethings can still happen in terms
(36:33):
of an injury, especially whenyou're in a position like when
you're trying to defend everyblade of grass.
Right, you know you're tryingto stop somebody from getting a
very crucial first down, right,and like your reaction time and
all of that stuff kind of is, Iguess I would say I don't want
to say goes out of the window,is I guess I would say I don't
(36:53):
want to say goes out of thewindow, but you're not thinking
about it at a time where you'retrying to, like, defend somebody
from a crucial first down, orif you're the quarterback trying
to get a crucial first down.
But yeah, I mean, I think theyare on to something with how
they are protecting quarterbacks.
I do think there are someinstances where a quarterback
gets hit in the pocket that theycan handle a little bit better
(37:16):
with this whole thing of thatbody area you have to hit the
quarterback.
It's times where a quarterbackwill move the slightest inch and
you were intending to hit thebody and you hit something else,
right, like I think they needto look into trying to maybe do
something for that and thosekind of instances need to look
into trying to maybe dosomething for that and those
kind of instances.
But when it comes to thesliding thing, um, I think
they're on to something and Ijust think, like the players you
(37:39):
know, in most cases unlike alshahir just have to be reflect,
receptive to what's beingcoached in terms of protecting
the quarterback yeah, that'sgood point.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
It's not like we don't see quarterback sliding
all throughout the week, everyweekend, and not even with just
the NFL, but also throughoutcollege football.
So, yeah, that is a very goodpoint, but, yeah, obviously very
, very ugly scene in terms ofwhat went down.
Wishing Trevor the best, and,yeah, to go back to what you
(38:11):
were saying at the beginning ofthis conversation, it doesn't
matter now, but yeah, I agree,they should have shut Trevor
down.
They should have shut Trevordown for the season.
Anyway, maybe take thatdecision out of his hands.
Obviously, you know he wants togo out there and compete.
He wants to go out there and bethere with his teammates.
That is very, very clear.
And you, you know one thing youdefinitely cannot deny now and
(38:34):
and you know we talked about inhis absence in terms of what his
, what him being there means asfar as football production on
the field.
But there is one thing that youcan no longer argue is that
Trevor is the leader of thisfootball team.
When you look at the reactionthat we got after the hit
happened, those guys, thoseteammates, those Trev is their
(38:55):
guy and I know there wasn't anydoubt about that here on our end
, but there definitely was likesome chatter, you know, over the
course of the season and youknow from from some other people
.
So, yeah, anything else youwant to mention in terms of this
incident here?
Jay, obviously we'll, you know.
We wish him a speedy recovery.
Hope he comes back 100% nextyear.
(39:17):
But, trev, if you find yourselflistening to this podcast for
some reason, man, we are goodwith you just shutting it down
for the year and focusing on2025 and where we can get you,
you know, a new coach, maybesome new offensive linemen, some
new weapons, new offensivecoordinators, new general
manager.
But, hey, enjoy the holidaywith your friend, with your
(39:37):
family.
Man, you're about to be afather, like all of this.
Like, take this into accountand we will be okay with you
shutting it down for theremainder of the year.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yes, please, trevor, shut it down, man.
And yeah, spend spend all yourenergy on your family and then,
whatever the rest of the energyyou want to spend, spend that on
Len Shotkin.
No, you want to get DougPeterson and Trent Baalke up out
of there.
Yeah, nothing.
Well, I will say this Phil, Iguess we can kind of talk about
this, since we're talking aboutreactions to the hit.
(40:08):
What do you think of like DougPeterson and what he said about
the hit and?
Um, just, you know theaftermath in terms of his
statements oh, yeah, that'sright, thanks for bringing that.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah, I totally forgot about that.
Yeah, um, also, again, can'twait to get Doug up out of here,
another former player, so heknows how things go.
You know a former quarterbackat that.
So for him to come out and, andyou know, tell people that, hey
, his guys need to be smarter.
And, um, you know a formerquarterback at that.
So for him to come out and youknow, tell people that, hey, his
guys need to be smarter.
And you know we shouldn't beescalating Again.
Just nonsense that you don't,you don't want to hear in the,
(40:44):
maybe behind closed doorsthey're telling their players
hey, go to bat for your guys.
So for him to come out thereand say that, and you know, not
necessarily have his playersback, just adding more fuel to
the fire.
And another reason as to why Icannot wait for him to get up
out of here.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Same.
You have a, you know, texansorganization who's batting for
their player who did the wrongthing.
Meanwhile, doug can't bat forhis player who did the right
thing, like, who had the rightreaction.
So, yeah, man, that just kindof stood out to me.
And, as you said, man like wecan't get him up out of here
quick enough.
Man, like, how does that feelfor the locker room?
(41:23):
Right, that your coach won'twho was a former quarterback, by
the way won't bat for you, youknow, defending your own
quarterback, essentially thefranchise quarterback for this
team.
But I guess that goes back towhat we've said.
Maybe Doug Peterson justdoesn't care much for Trevor
Lawrence, man, you know, andmaybe that stems from the whole
situation with Press Taylor.
Maybe, you know, maybe Trevor'snot happy with Press Taylor and
(41:46):
, as a result, doug is takingsome kind of offense to it.
But you can tell something'snot right with that Doug
Peterson Trevor Lawrenceconnection.
And then the last thing I wantto mention too is Wigg kind of
mentioned this Shout-outs to TWigg on his podcast.
He thinks that the way that DougPeterson reacted and what he
said kind of gives Trent Baalkea way to go to shotgun and be
(42:09):
like see, look, it wasn't me, itisn't me, it's clearly the
coach type of thing.
What are your thoughts on that?
Real quick, I'll get mythoughts on it.
I don't think that's the case,because I think to some degree
Trent Baalke had to do with theprocess of hiring Doug Peterson,
so I don't think thatnecessarily should give him an
(42:34):
out in terms of this situation,because part of the reason why
we have Doug Peterson is becauseof Trent Baalke and we didn't
cast the net that we wanted tofor coaches during the coaching
candidate search that we wantedto.
We had to settle with somebodywho would settle with Trent
Baalke.
So Trent's really the reasonthat Doug is here essentially,
and that's where I am with that.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
I wouldn't put it past him because Trimbulky is a
snake, right.
So I understand what T-Wig istrying to say, because I think
it's well within the realm ofpossibility for somebody who
operates like Trimbulky, forsomebody who you know people
around the league clearly do notwant to work with.
I could certainly see him dothat.
(43:12):
I remember there were thosereports coming from somewhere.
Like these don't come fromnowhere, right.
They originate from somewherewhere the reports were coming
out saying that maybe he'sgetting in in shot cons ear
saying, hey, I can deliver billBelichick, right?
That doesn't appear out ofnowhere.
For the most part of that's theone thing I've learned from
watching a lot of insiders alsolearning from you.
(43:33):
Um, I, I don't.
I don't think that's the caseeither, but I could definitely
see it coming out of his mouth,or him at least insinuating to
shot con that that is the case,if that makes sense right, right
.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
yeah, I just wanted to get your take.
I also wanted to talk about theWalker Little thing, but we'll
save that for another podcast.
Well, that'll be another greattopic that we can save for
another podcast.
So we can wrap this one up.
Man, as I said, you can followme, james at Sportsground,
underscore Don on Twitter.
Phil at Phil, the FilipinoTouchdownJadwarscom, the website
(44:12):
Twitter handle fortouchdownjadwars at tdjadwarspod
, and shout outs to SeatGeek aswell.
Go ahead, phil, you can take itfrom here in terms of anything
else that we need to add toclose the show.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah, that will be it .
Obviously, we're, you know,emotions running high here,
especially when it comes to ourplayers and Trevor's health and,
honestly, the health of anybodyon this team.
It doesn't matter who it is.
You know, these are our guysand we want to make sure that
everybody is doing well andplaying as safely as possible.
You know, at the end of the day, what Alshayer did was dirty,
(44:47):
and I do think he is a dirtyplayer and we have plenty of
evidence to confirm that.
And just once again emphasizingTrevor if you have found your
way to the touchdown Jaguarspodcast, shut it down.
Enjoy the holidays, enjoy thefact that you're about to be a
dad and that your life's aboutto change forever.
And we'll see you in 2025,brother.
(45:10):
So take care of yourself.
But no, that's it for thisweek's episode.
Jay, once again, everythingwill be in the show notes of
this episode.
Everything you need in terms ofthe link tree link is right
there.
So thank you all, so, very,very much.
That is my co-host, jamesJohnson, and I am Phil Smith,
and do not forget to tune in toTouchdown Jaguars for each and
every Jaguar touchdown, andwe'll see you next time.
(45:31):
Take care, folks.
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