December 13, 2024 • 49 mins
What if a victory could cost you the future? That’s the paradox we’re unpacking as we hail the Jacksonville Jaguars' long-awaited win over the Tennessee Titans, ending a daunting five-game losing streak. Experience the bittersweet thrill of triumph, even in a low-scoring game, while grappling with its ripple effects on our draft positioning. We spotlight exceptional performances, and unravel the unexpected news of Bill Belichick migrating to college football, a twist that shifts the spotlight away from Jacksonville.
Our deep dive into Walker Little's career progression reveals a narrative of perseverance amid setbacks, highlighting the significance of his newly extended contract. We explore the dynamics of his development, underscoring the challenges of limited playtime and drawing comparisons with Cam Robinson to demonstrate how injuries have shaped his path. Celebrating Little's potential, we discuss the strategic advantage of securing his role as left tackle, thus freeing up future draft picks for other priorities.
Defensive prowess takes center stage as we analyze standout performances from newcomers like Maason Smith and seasoned talents such as Josh Hines-Allen. Even amidst the struggles from Mac Jones, the Jaguars' defense remains a force worth watching. With Brian Thomas Jr. nearing a standout rookie benchmark and comparisons to Fred Taylor's legendary debut season, we examine the bright future these rising stars promise. As we anticipate the future, the complexities of victory versus draft impact linger, reminding us of the fine line between immediate glory and long-term success. Tune in for a dose of optimism, strategic insight, and a touch of nostalgia as we journey through the Jaguars' evolving narrative.
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 (00:24):
Still ready.
And no, that is a no no.
Touchdown Jacksonville 109yards.
Incredible, incredible.
Play action Upstairs wide open.
Tommy Bohannon, touchdownJacksonville Looking for Jimmy
(00:52):
in the end zone.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Welcome to the Touchdown Jaguarspodcast.
Here are your hosts, jamesJohnson and Phil Smith.
Hey everyone, welcome back tothe Touchdown Jaguars podcast.
I am your co-host, phil Smith,and joining me, as always, is
(01:14):
your other co-host, jamesJohnson.
And Jay, what do you know it?
We are here on the afternoon ofWednesday, december 11th and
we're going to talk about a win.
Is it a win that benefits theteam in the long run?
We'll see, given how thingshave now sorted out in the draft
order.
We kind of touched on that onlast week's episode.
(01:35):
So if you want a little bitmore on that, definitely check
out last week's episode.
But yeah, jay, we haven't beenable to see this and talk about
a win in quite some time.
They snapped their five gamelosing streak.
So we're going to talk aboutthe game very briefly because,
as a lot of you know, and as youcan see by the score, there
wasn't too much to talk about.
I mean, I know a lot of funnytweets came out over the weekend
(02:01):
because of Calvin Ridley Shoutout to him.
But, yeah, really not a wholelot to discuss in terms of game
breakdown, but there weredefinitely some standouts that
you want to point out, and we'llalso talk about some news that
we put off from last week interms of an extension and also,
to end the episode on a positivenote, we will just talk about
what are the bright spots of the2024 season.
(02:22):
So, jay, happy to be back herewith you and, yeah, like I said,
talk about a win for brightspots of the 2024 season.
So, jay, happy to be back herewith you and, yeah, like I said,
talk about a win for a changeof pace.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, a victory.
Well, I can't say Monday, butvictory Wednesday episode.
We haven't had a victoryepisode in quite some time.
It was getting a littlerepetitive here talking about
the losses, although you know alot of people are upset that the
wind now kind of messes up ourdraft positioning.
(02:50):
I guess we can kind of talk onthat a little bit maybe, um, as
we get into the game.
But yeah, man, while we didmess up our draft positioning,
it never feels bad to beat thetitans right, especially in
Nashville, because we juststruggle there in our history
with them.
So you know, it never reallyfeels bad per se to beat the
(03:13):
Titans, our most hated rivals.
And yeah, as you said, man,while the score was the,
actually it was the lowestscoring game of the year for the
NFL.
By the way, phil, I called thatat the end of the broadcast
when I was watching the game,although it was that, we still
got a few good talking points todiscuss on it.
(03:34):
Can't wait to get into it andjust happy to be back in the
booth with you, my man, asalways, you know where to find
us.
You can find me at sportsgrind,underscore, done.
You can find Phil at Philgrind,underscore, done.
You can find phil at phil thefilipino, both on twitter, and
you can find the touchdownjaguars twitter handle at td
jaguars pod.
Of course, the website iswwwtouchdownjaguarscom, and also
(04:00):
shout outs to seat geek.
Who is your go-to provider foryour ticketed needs, for
whatever event it is that youwant to go to, whether it's
sports concerts, you name it.
They got you covered.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, all that will be in the Linktree link in the
show notes of this episode.
But, jay, we are going to pivothere actually to some breaking
news that just came out of thesports world.
That will be.
It's very interesting to usbecause it's going to prevent
something from happening here inJacksonville.
Jay, the North Carolina TarHeels have are finalizing a deal
to land Bill Belichick as itsnext head football coach.
(04:36):
This is according to multiplereports that are now coming out.
So we've been kind of followingthis here, of course, as the uh
, you know a lot of fans, youknow, wanting to make sure bill
stayed away from duval county,trevor, lawrence, all of it, and
looks like we are going to beable to avoid that for now, jay.
So, uh, there you have it andwant to get your immediate
(04:57):
reaction bill belichick isheading to the college ranks to
be the head coach of the northcarolina tar heels yeah, shout
outs to Boogie for putting it inour thread.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And, as we said in the past, right, phil, this is
just the world of podcastingthat we live in right now.
We can get stuff on the spot.
Man, it's crazy where we comefrom.
We used to do blog, talk radionow, and now we can get stuff on
the spot, you know, basicallyin terms of from Twitter or
wherever it is it came from.
But, yeah, shout outs to Boogieto getting that to us.
(05:27):
It looks like it was reported by24-7 Sports.
As we all know, they coverrecruiting and college football,
college basketball, things ofthat nature.
So, you know, this is fantasticnews.
Fantastic news because, just assure as Bill Belichick was a
free agent, the cons were goingto have interest, right, and
(05:50):
it's so important because, maybenot for north carolina, they
might be hating this, um, butthen again, who knows, maybe
bill belichick could be a goodcollege coach.
We'll see.
But this is important because,as I mentioned you, if the cons
brought in Bill Belichick, allof the reports were saying that
he wanted full power.
Of course he wanted full powerbecause that's pretty much what
(06:12):
he had, at least for the mostpart, with the Patriots and as,
as we've discussed.
I don't know if we discussed iton this podcast Maybe we have
but at least put it on Twitter.
Bill Belichick is not a greatscout or executive, and that's
not to take away from his Hallof Fame coaching career.
Great coach, fantastic coach,but as a scout, you know, that
(06:36):
would be something that I feellike he should leave in someone
else's hands.
If he was going to come toJacksonville and with him, being
the scout that he is, would wetrust any GM that he would
choose?
You know.
So like that also opens upanother conversation.
So shout outs to the CarolinaTar Heels for helping us dodge a
(06:56):
bullet there.
Now we just got to get TrentBaalke up out of here.
But shout outs to Carolina allthe Jazz fans out there Go ahead
and send some donations toCarolina, because they saved us
from a grave mistake.
And again, the only hurdle nowto clear field getting Trent
Balky up out of here and, ofcourse, doug Peterson, that goes
without saying.
But most importantly, gettingTrent Balky up out of here.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, you said it for a while now.
You know just how enamored thecons are with Bill Belichick.
And listen, no one can evertake away what Bill Belichick
did in terms of his run with TomBrady.
Obviously, all of that iscemented in stone in terms of
his legacy.
He's going to moonwalkbackpedal, do whatever, bray
Wyatt backwards, walk into theHall of Fame.
So none of that is underinvestigation.
(07:45):
But yeah, in terms of how thingswent in those final years of
the new england patriots, thatis not something that we needed
here in jacksonville.
So good news, more good newshere on a wednesday afternoon.
But, jay, let's get into somenews that came out last week in
terms of an extension foroffensive tackle walker little
Per over the cap.
Little's deal is worth $40.5million in total value, includes
(08:08):
a $25.944 million fullyguaranteed salary with a $25.5
million in new guarantees, topair with a $444,256 guarantee
on the final season of hisrookie contract this year.
The pay bump makes him the 14thhighest paid left tackle in the
NFL on average annual value perover the cap, and he ranks 15th
(08:32):
at his position in totalguaranteed money.
That is per Zach Goodall of theJaguars.
Shout out to him.
So, jay, I know for some reason,like Walker Little, has always
been a little bit of apolarizing figure when it comes
to some Jaguar fans.
I know you know we bring upBoogie all the time.
A lot of our audience doesn'teven know who Boogie is in terms
(08:53):
of a person.
They just know who he isbecause we talk about him on
this podcast a lot, but hedidn't seem to be very thrilled
with this.
But I mean again, when you lookat the money, when you look at
the fact that you know theyfinally got Cam Robinson up out
of here and, jay, you made areally good point about Walker
Little in terms of the footballplayer and how much time he has
had to play football and withhim being in and out of the
(09:15):
rotation all the time, he'snever really gotten the full
opportunity to develop hisskills and now he's going to be
able to do that.
So please tell our audienceabout that and your how you feel
about the extension overallyeah, well, yeah, as you were.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
You were saying one of the issues we bring up walker
little a lot in this podcastand one of the issues I've
always had wasn't evennecessarily tied to him and his
skill set, but more so tied towe drafted somebody that was
getting very little play time.
That was a swing tackle in thesecond round, right, and I think
we used that pick that DaveCaldwell got, one of the picks
(09:52):
that Dave Caldwell got forYannick and Gakwe to get Walker
Little.
We used that on Walker Little,should I say, and when you get a
second round pick, as we'vesaid, phil, many, many times,
any, anybody you're taking inthe top three rounds in any
draft that's reasonably equipped, you're gonna start her right.
(10:12):
And for them to go this long,we're in year four for Walker
Little, right, and you know,realize that he needs to be the
left tackle of the future.
That's malpractice, right.
This should have beenestablished long before now and
essentially what you're doing,you're giving him a contract off
of limited work.
(10:32):
Now, that being said, to WalkerLittle's defense, as you were
saying we have discussed in ourtext thread is, you know, some
people may be upset with it, butat the end of the day, walker
Little hasn't played a lot offootball, at least not as much
as you would want for startingleft tackle.
So he's still developing.
(10:54):
And it's hard to develop whenyou're in and out of a lineup,
especially at left tackle.
And I've said this, you'redealing with arguably the most
gifted, physically giftedathlete on the field in a
defensive end or outsidelinebacker, whatever the case
may be.
And to be able to learn theposition while being in and out
of the lineup it's just simplynot doable, you know.
(11:17):
So I think what helped them getto this point, of course, was
to get Cam Robinson out of here,which he should have been long
out of here anyway.
I'm not sure why they held onto him as long as they did.
He was a Dave Caldwell pickthat Trent Baalke extended, and
then not only extended.
We had Walker Little, we hadAnton Harrison, so like that
(11:41):
caused some conflict right there, you got three left tackles.
I mean I guess like in this dayand age it don't hurt to have
three guys that can start attackle, but you end up with a
situation like we had, whereWalker Little has predominantly
spent more time on the benchthan he has spent on the field
Now, thankfully well, I don'twant to say thankfully, because
it involves injury, but what Iwill say, what has helped walker
(12:04):
little, although he's been inthe lineup sporadically and not
consistently?
Um, cam robertson did miss a lotof games, right, so he is
somewhat polished, but it's justmore so.
You need that consistency atleft tackle because again, the
weekend and week out, you'redealing with arguably the best
athlete on the field.
(12:25):
So you know he's going to takehis lumps because he's still
relatively, when you look atstarts, in terms of starts he's
still relatively a young player,right, and not to mention, in
college he didn't play a loteither.
He was, you know, he wasinjured coming out of college
too.
So he's going to take his lumps.
It's not going to look perfect.
That's one thing I want peopleto understand about Walker
(12:46):
Little.
It's not going to look perfect.
He's going to take his lumps.
It's going to be times where itlooks like his head is spinning
because he hasn't necessarilystarted in a lot of games
consistently.
But make no mistake about it,the skill set is there.
We're talking about a guy.
I think when I researched himyears ago, when we first drafted
him, he was like the number onecollege recruit on.
(13:09):
It might've been 24-7 or one ofthe big recruiting sites that
does that stuff, but he was likethe number one college recruit
coming out of college.
So the talent is there.
We've seen it at times and thenat times we've seen them
struggle again.
With consistency the struggleswill go away, but the skill set,
the size, the height, theweight is there and, um, you
(13:30):
know, I like this from thestandpoint, this signing, from
the standpoint of now.
We don't have to go into thedraft and hopefully trent
balky's not making the call, butwe don't have to go into the
draft saying, hey, we need aleft tackle and probably a guard
and a center, you know, cominginto the draft.
So it kind of eliminates one ofthose needs we have on the
(13:51):
offensive line going into nextoffseason.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah, I'm very much on board with this move and
definitely think that Walker hasearned the opportunity to
become the left tackle of thefuture.
And you know, I think that morepeople kind of keep up with our
buddy, daniel Griffiths, whowill come up a little bit later
in this episode.
You'll know how well he hasplayed since taking over full
(14:17):
time for Cam Robinson, so I dothink that big things are in his
future.
Like you said, we've talkedabout him quite a bit here on
this podcast, dating back to thedraft process, because we had
mocked him to us for months andthen he ended up being the
selection.
So we were definitely excitedabout that.
And, yeah, he's going to takethose lumps, he's going to have
(14:38):
lapses about that.
And, yeah, he's going to takethose lumps, he's going to have
lapses.
But as he continues to get morecomfortable with the position
and, you know, just kind offigure things out build up his
chemistry with the rest of theguys as well as, of course, you
know, trevor Lawrence I meanhe's been there with him since
day one, so I'm sure thatalready has been established for
the most part.
Here we go.
Here's a good tweet from now.
This is from december 5th, so Ihaven't seen this number
(15:00):
updated uh since um thetennessee game.
But in terms of walker,little's uh pressure percentage
allowed for pff 2022 10.1percent, 2023 6.3 and then 2024
4.3.
So playing very well, veryexcited for him and excited the
again the growth of theoffensive line.
(15:23):
But, jay, let's move into theactual football that took place
on the field here this pastSunday.
As we mentioned, it wasn'tnecessarily a shootout, but it
was a matchup between two badteams, things obviously not
going very well for Tennesseeeither, and I guess that's one
of those saving graces.
Right?
You just talked about it in thebeginning of the episode.
It's always nice to beatTennessee.
(15:44):
It's also always nice to seeTennessee struggling, and they
certainly did, as theJacksonville Jaguars went up to
Nashville and won Somethingagain.
That doesn't happen very often,especially in the history of
this podcast, but also just inthe history of the franchise in
general.
The Jaguars win 10-6 inNashville behind pretty much a
(16:04):
really great defensive effort inTank Bigsby.
Jay, I just want to get yourthoughts on this game because
you did just get to watch thecondensed version here today.
I watched it live, but I wasalso doing some things in
between the game.
It's just so hard to watch thisfootball team, even when
they're winning.
Um other than you know the thebright spots that we'll talk
(16:25):
about here in just a moment,after we discuss the game.
Uh, but yeah, what takeawaysdid you have?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
because I know you were pretty impressed by some
defensive efforts yeah, man, um,one thing, one of the things
that stood out to me, especiallylike within the first few
drives, was the defensive line.
They were making plays.
Now, that's not to say that thetitans didn't have some good
runs in there, but it looks likethey were mostly like
linebacker based mistakes.
(16:51):
Um, that led to those runs.
But the defensive line to mereally stood out and, like each
member of the starting group,made an impact play, as I was
telling you before we startedrecording.
You know you got Mason Smith,who's coming into his own right
these last few weeks now thathe's not being marked as
inactive, which you know.
(17:13):
That's a whole nother story fora whole nother time.
You know, doug trying tosabotage Balky which I guess if
you're in Doug's shoes you wouldget it but at the same time you
want to put out the bestplayers out there to help you
win at the same time.
But, yeah, mason Smith wasmaking some plays and you know
getting off of blocks andstopping the running back from
(17:34):
making too much penetration intothe past, the line of scrimmage
.
Then you um Devon Hamilton, whomade a play here and there, you
know Devon Hamilton foundhimself in the backfield.
I know he made a tackle onPollard I think it was like two
yards deep into the backfieldand really he just caught
Pollard before he can get going.
It was like the play was overbefore it kind of even took into
(17:57):
uh to effect.
And then, um, josh Allen, ofcourse he did his thing.
He had a sack, uh, at late inthe second or the uh yeah, that
was the second quarter that hehad as well where he just
straight up like blasted uh willlevis and I thought they were
going to flag him because hekind of landed on will levis,
(18:17):
but they didn't, but blasted himat the end of the second
quarter and that, I think, ledto a fumble.
But it might have beenrecovered.
I'll have to go back and lookat that.
But nonetheless, though, he hada good game.
That sack aside, he was beinghimself Josh Allen, all over the
field making plays, not justtowards the quarterback but
(18:39):
making plays in the run game andwhat have you.
And Trayvon Walker too.
He was a very physical presenceon the edge and, um, it was, I
think, early in the first half.
He might have saved thetouchdown there early in the
first half, or it might havebeen the second half.
But, yeah, he had a play, avery impactful play, where, in a
game as low scoring as it wasthe lowest scoring game of the
(19:01):
year in the NFL, he had a playthere where he say the touchdown
that probably would have beenball game right.
So you know he, he deserves aunsung hero hat or whatever you
want to call it a game ball,whatever the case may be.
So that was the biggest partthat stood out to me.
Also, you know, matt Jones is.
(19:22):
Matt Jones Wasn't veryimpressive, but I think what
happened to get the Jaguarsoffense going in the third
quarter and fourth quarter?
They started to go to BrianThomas Jr more and started to
realize, hey, this dude isliterally open all the time and
the Titans can't do anythingwith him.
Nobody has right, phil, none ofthese teams that we've seen
(19:44):
have been able to stop BrianThomas.
The only thing stopping BrianThomas is Press Taylor and our
offensive line, at times notgiving the quarterback enough
time and sometimes TrevorLawrence not making the best
decisions or overthrowing him.
So they found out, hey, itfinally clicked like, hey, let's
keep going to him.
I think he had four catches ina row at one point and it
(20:08):
finally clicked on him.
They even talked about it inthe press conference I think it
was Doug that said it and that'swhat got the offense going.
Now again, they didn't score alot of points, but what put them
in the position to score thepoints that they did was the
impact of Brian Thomas.
You can sprinkle in aoccasional good ETN run or catch
and a good occasional TankBigsby run or catch and that's
(20:31):
pretty much what the offense interms of the points that they
put up.
That's what helped them to getto where they were.
So that was my biggest takeaway.
Also shout outs to jorian jones,who had a phenomenal game.
He should have been the game'smvp if he wasn't, uh, but he had
a phenomenal game, made severalpaths break up, at least two or
(20:52):
three that I saw.
Um, he got a sack as well.
He was sticking his nose in therun game too, which is
something like me and youalready kind of knew about
jorian because we had thisdiscussion like weeks ago of um.
You know where he ranked on pffin terms of his run support
status, um, but yeah, he wassticking his nose in the run
(21:14):
game near the line of scrimmageas well, which kind of went
under the radar.
Of course you always see thepass related stuff because he's
a corner, but he's the guythat's not scared to play near
the line of scrimmage and makean impact there, as we saw with
the sack, as we saw with some ofthe stops that he made near the
line of scrimmage.
So shout-outs to him and I'mvery excited to see where the
future goes for him.
(21:34):
We mocked him to us, so anybodywe mock to us, we're always
happy to see when they actuallyend up on the team and, um, yeah
, I think we might be cookingwith grease with him and, uh,
time will tell um what we havein him.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I'm excited for his future yeah, man to bring up
boogie again.
Uh, he is an fsu fan.
He saw this coming.
Uh, jerry and jones is easilygoing to be a fan favorite for a
very, very long time.
Would not be a surprise, jay,if we saw some more Jerrion
Jones jerseys popping up in thecrowd at the games.
I will actually get to go tothe game this Sunday, so excited
(22:11):
for that.
It'll be the first home game Iget to attend since what?
October?
Because again just beentraveling, been so busy and the
team's not very fun to watchbecause of the aforementioned
Mac Jones.
But the defense may be worth theprice of admission as of right
now because, like you said, theyare cooking.
And yeah, josh Allen, like yousaid, had that sack.
(22:31):
I was definitely worried alsothat he was going to get called
for that penalty.
Continuing to see Mason Smithout there trying to pull up the
snap count that here it is thedefensive line snap count from,
once again, daniel Griffiths, 51for Josh Hines-Allen, 48 for
Trayvon Walker, 39 for MasonSmith, 38 for Hamilton, 33 Eric
(22:53):
Armstead, 25 for Tyrell Laceyand 18 for Jeremiah Ledbetter.
So, yeah, we're seeing thosenumbers, those snap counts raise
, go up for Mason Smith, soexcited for him to continue to
progress whenever we get thisnew defensive coordinator in
here and he gets moreopportunities.
But yeah, jim, in terms of, likethe Mac Jones thing, you know,
like I can't believe.
At one point there were peoplecalling for him to maybe get a
(23:17):
shot, even before Trevor gothurt.
This is who Mac Jones is.
This is who got Bill Belichickessentially fired and kicked out
of the building.
Bill Belichick, that guy, youknow, who has all those
accolades that I talked aboutearlier, but Mac Jones he is.
I don't even know if he is asecond string quarterback at
this point, right, jay?
(23:37):
I mean, with the way that youknow, some of these other teams
have guys that can come in andat least win you games.
I mean, I don't know that MacJones.
I don't know what roster heends up on next year.
Do you bring him back just forthe continuity and the vibes?
I mean, he seems like a goodlocker room guy, but he's
certainly not a very goodquarterback.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah, I would.
I would definitely say and I'mnot even being funny when I say
this that, uh, his play hashelped his chances to return as
a a backup quarterback with theJacksonville Jaguars.
Now, when you look at and I youknow I've praised him as a
backup quarterback, but neverhave I been one of those people
saying like he'll start overTrevor Lawrence one day, like
(24:21):
that never was a thing that evencrossed my mind.
I don't know how that even cameto fruition, but that's neither
here or neither there.
But that being said, one thingI will say about Mack is you do
want somebody with a lot ofexperience as your backup
quarterback.
That he has.
(24:41):
Um, now again, you know hehasn't had the best showings
when he started for us and whathave you.
But it's times where you look atmac right, and I know the
preseason is kind of vanilla,but you see enough to believe
like, hey, I would like to runit back as a, you know, you know
second year with him in termsof having him as a second year
with him in terms of having himas a number two, and maybe he
takes a leap as a backupquarterback.
(25:04):
But I guess, before we answerthat question we got who's our
coach, what kind of system we'rerunning, all of that good stuff
, and then you can kind ofdecipher if Matt Jones is a good
choice to be back as the secondstring guy.
But yeah, to answer yourquestion, I don't think nobody's
choice to be back as the secondstring guy.
But yeah, to answer yourquestion, I don't think nobody's
going to be throwing crazymoney at him in terms of
bringing him in as a starter,because that was the thought
(25:26):
process heading into this season, like especially when looking
at the preseason but again, youhave to be careful with the
preseason but a lot of peoplewere like, oh yeah, matt jones
not going to be here long term,somebody's gonna throw him a lot
of money next and he's going to, you know, end up starting for
some.
Somebody, or a lot of peoplewere saying, towards the trade
deadline, right, it's like let'strade mac jones to the
(25:47):
minnesota vikings.
Like did the minnesota vikingswant mac jones?
Like you have to ask yourselfthat.
But I think he's certainly donehimself a favor, or well, he's
done jags fans a favor in termsof his chances to remain in
Jacksonville, because I don'tthink like he's gonna have like
this extensive line or theseextensive contracts thrown at
(26:10):
him in the offseason.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, we discussed this a couple of weeks ago in
terms of the upcomingquarterback market.
It's not very good as far asfree as teams than Mac Jones.
So, yeah, it seems like he'llprobably stick around and yeah,
(26:41):
that's a good point.
You know you don't want to.
You want a guy to stick aroundthat has the experience.
Once again, I think he isdefinitely a very good locker
room guy and obviously, himbeing local, you know that's a
little bit of a bonus as well.
It just depends on the money.
You know you certainly aren'tgoing to pay him you much.
But yeah, I don't think anyone'sgoing to be calling or
clamoring for Mac Jones to betheir guy.
(27:01):
If anything, that maybe youhave competition in terms of a
backup quarterback, you know, interms of familiarity somewhere
else with him.
But yeah, not too worried aboutgetting outbid for Mac Jones.
If they want to do that, youknow by all means he can have
them.
But, jay, anything else youwant to mention in terms of this
game before we talk about again, to wrap up this episode, just
(27:22):
a positive in terms of theseason overall.
Anything else you want tomention in terms of the
performance of the team, onceagain coming away with a victory
over the Tennessee Titans,although it did come at the cost
of dropping from number one inthe draft order to number five
although it did come at the costof dropping from number one in
the draft order to number five.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, I guess we can talk about it.
How do you feel about the win?
Because it is a win over theTitans, right.
So, like some people might feelindifferent, while some people
might be like I'll take a lossover the Titans if it keeps us
at the number one overall pick.
How do you feel about wherewe're positioned at in the draft
right now and um, that winbasically taking us out of the
travis hunter race, for now atleast?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
yeah, I don't feel very good.
I know people always want tobeat tennessee, I totally get
that.
But it reminded me a lot of afew years back when the jaguars
played indianapolis in week six,week 17, and if they, if
indianapolis had won, they wouldnot have gotten the number one
overall pick to draft andrewluck.
And I was clamoring for thejaguars to lose that game.
(28:30):
Not that you know teams are outhere throwing games, you know.
You know these, like theseplayers, livelihoods depend on
it and no one's out hereintentionally tanking for the
most part.
But I was clamoring for thejaguars to lose that game and
keep andrew luck out ofindianapolis.
And, lo and behold, that didn'thappen.
Now, the events that came afterandrew luck being in
indianapolis, you know, veryunfortunate.
(28:51):
That's what they get for notprotecting a generational guy,
but that's a topic for anothertime.
But yeah, I don't feel goodbecause he's not going to.
If New England is picking atthree, he is not going to get
past number three.
I do think if it stays the wayit is, las Vegas and New York
take quarterbacks.
I think Vegas is a shoe in forShador Sanders and I think the
(29:11):
Giants will take Cam Ward.
Now again, we're in Decemberand we know how crazy things can
change in a short amount oftime.
But there are two.
There is one team, jay, thatcan help us quite a bit here in
terms of the draft order, and doyou know who that team is?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Not Carolina, is it?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
It is your Atlanta Falcons, not Carolina, is it?
It is your Atlanta Falcons.
They play Vegas and New Yorkback to back and Kirk Cousins
man is looking terrible rightnow.
He hasn't thrown a touchdownpass in a month and if he can
gift the Raiders and the Giantsa couple of wins here back to
back, then we'll find ourselvesright back in the mix.
But yeah, jacksonville, I think, think, has to pick in the top
(29:58):
three, bare minimum to have ashot at him.
But, however, this is a gooddraft in terms of being in the
top five to like eight range.
I think you're going to get areally, really elite talent and
yeah, and you know, with theright GM, you know we should be
cooking, but yeah, I don't feelgood about it.
But again, shout out to yourFalcons.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
They can help us out this week, these next couple
weeks let's go kurt cousins,right, but yeah, no, like it now
I'll say that it doesn't feelgreat to lose out on a talent
like travis hunter, but then, atthe end of the day, like when I
look at it right, you'reprobably looking at like you
went from basically being ableto get somebody, like if you
(30:36):
were on the, the hype train ofgetting a wide receiver right,
you went from being able to getTravis Hunter to being in the
range to get T-Mac and who forthose of you who don't know who
T-Mac is, that's the kid inArizona State who now I
admittedly I have to watch somemore film on T-Mac, but
everything that I see in termsof highlights and what have you
(30:58):
on him is pretty impressive.
And like, when I look at thatkid, I'm just like, oh wow, you
put him next to brian thomas jr,like you know and I don't want
this to happen because we'vecomplained about not running the
ball in the past but it's likewe'll never run the ball if we
got t-mac and brian thomas jrrunning routes out there, and
then you sprinkle in probablywhat'll be Evan Ingram coming
(31:19):
back right and then probablywhat'll be Parker Washington in
the slot because, as we all knowChristian Kirk's contract is
kind of getting to the pointwhere he might be expendable.
You know you're looking atprobably a decent little group
there, you know what I'm saying.
So like to go from being ableto get Travis Hunter to getting
(31:39):
T-Mac at receiver.
I don't know if the drop-off isthat significant.
Again, I want to watch somefilm on T-Mac.
There's also the kid his nameis escaping me that goes to
Michigan.
The defensive tackle who couldbe available, which we don't
really need.
A defensive tackle.
We just talked about how MasonSmith is playing, but, um, he is
(32:04):
every time I go on Twittersomebody's putting a highlight
of him just wrecking havoc.
So, uh, you can never have toomany big guys, right, that's the
me and you kind of talked aboutthat in the thread with Georgia
.
That's how Georgia hasmaintained their dominance a
little bit and we're able to getthrough that stretch early in
the season where they would justbeat up.
But you know, we'll see, timewill tell if it's a costly
mistake.
But hey, man, the Falcons, man,our, you know you can say
(32:27):
arguably them and the Panthersare arguably our like sister NFC
teams, kind of because of theproximity and just kind of how
we kind of have builtrelationships with them over the
years.
They could help us out a lothere.
So you know, kurt Cochranes, goout there and throw as many
picks as you want.
I think what you have to worryabout is if they put Michael
(32:49):
Pendix out there and there's nofilm on him and he just goes
crazy.
But you know for now, if theysit with Kurt Cochranes or
Jagwars might get a favor or twothere.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yeah, and that receiver is Teteroa McMillan
sorry, from Arizona.
As you mentioned, pff'ssecond-ranked player on their
big board as of December 4th,and then Travis Hunter is number
one.
Mason Graham is the player youwere thinking of, jay, so you
know, adding another Mason tothe interior defensive line.
What do you think about theidea of people throwing Ashton
(33:21):
Jenty out there, I thinksomewhere between like the 8 to
12 range, if they were to pullout another couple wins.
Any interest in bringing thatguy in and pairing him with Tank
Bigsby, because I'm not reallysure what's going to happen with
Travis Etienne?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Well, that's the big question, though, phil.
Who's our next coach andoffensive coordinator, right?
I don't know if it will be BenJohnson, but if it's Ben Johnson
, I can see a place on hisroster for Travis Etienne and a
significant role for him andTank Bixby, because what Ben
Johnson is doing with the tworunning backs that he has Sonic
(34:02):
and Knuckles over there in theLions, you know, it would seem
that he wants two running backsthat have that bring two
different dynamics to an offense, and that's what kind of has
made the lions as dangerous asthey have been.
I I would take ben johnson withtank bigsby and travis etn any
(34:22):
day over press taylor with themright.
In short, to.
To put it in short, um.
So, yeah, it just depends onwho the offensive coordinator
and the head coach is.
Genti is is extremely talented,don't get me wrong, and I know
we live in a day and time, andme and you have said this right,
taking running backs in thefirst round is kind of a no, but
(34:45):
it's been some special guysthat have made me look stupid
when it comes to that model,right, most notably one of which
you would know right from texasdamn, I'm blanking on his name
phil bijan, yeah, bijanrobertson.
And bijan robertson, who hasdone some great things with
(35:06):
atlanta falcons, make no mistakeabout it.
The falcons aren't losingbecause bijan robertson right.
So that's not why, uh, you findspecial talents like him and
even I mean even travis etn,where he was drafted what?
25th overall, something likethat.
When you look at aside from thisyear, you look at wait, they've
(35:26):
gotten out of him the yearsprior.
You can't say he's, he's been abust per se for a running back
that you took late in the firstround.
We've gotten some first roundtalent out of him and some first
round performances out of him.
And again, we could continue toget that if we get a Ben
(35:47):
Johnson or you know whoever thecase may be.
So I think a lot of that justdepends on who's calling the
plays, and you know if you havesomebody that also a GM, that's
coming in here and looking atyou know what Trent Baalke did
wrong and is looking to get thatout of here as quickly as
possible.
To establish a culture like thisis where the last regime messed
(36:08):
up.
We're going to fix this as soonas possible.
If you got it, you have a GMthat wants to make that type of
statement and starts cleaningthe house and getting the quote,
unquote, balking mistakes outof the building, then you know,
maybe you know you might have aGM that wants to, is looking
towards maybe trading E10 orsomething like that, but I don't
know.
I think if you made me putmoney on it right now, I believe
(36:33):
that the two running backs thatwe have now most bright
offensive minds, would probablybe fine with them.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, I totally agree .
Just been seeing AshtonJenties' name thrown out there a
lot by Jaguar fans, andunderstandably so.
He is outstanding.
He is the rightful HeismanTrophy winner.
I'm not even sure why.
It is a debate which is insane.
But honestly, ashton Jentiesshould just get fitted for his
Dallas Cowboy jersey right now,because I don't see him going
(37:04):
anywhere else other than theDallas Cowboys.
So we'll see.
But let's pivot here, jay, tothe last topic and stop
discussing future rookies onthis team and talk about one
that we have right now, who isjust lighting it up and you
already talked about him, youknow, during your breakdown and
that is Brian Thomas Jr.
And it just brought up thethought that I wanted to discuss
(37:26):
here because of, again, anothertweet we saw from Daniel
Griffiths.
We need to get him back on, bythe way, at the end of the
season to discuss everythingthat happened but he tweeted out
Brian Thomas Jr is on pace for71 catches, 1,113 yards and
eight touchdowns.
This would break all rookiereceiving records 64 catches,
(37:47):
which is held by Justin Blackman, 865 yards, also held by
Blackman, and then sixtouchdowns, which he's already
tied Alan Hearns with his rookieseason.
So the question that I have foryou, jay, and also our audience
, is Brian Thomas Jr, the bestrookie in Jaguar history.
We were trying to think of someother names that we could throw
(38:09):
out there.
Probably Maurice Jones-Drewbelongs on that list.
Justin Blackman, even in hislimited time, probably belongs
on that list.
The Allen brothers as a duoobviously was a really, really
fun time, even though the teamwasn't playing very well.
And maybe toss out some othernames that maybe you thought of.
(38:29):
Oh, jalen Ramsey, I think Imentioned.
But yeah, is Brian Thomas Jrthe best rookie in Jacksonville
Jaguar history?
Speaker 2 (38:38):
I think so.
To be honest with you.
Now, that's not a takeaway fromsome of these other rookie
seasons we've seen, but I thinkfor me a part of it is.
Our history at receiver hasbeen terrible, right, and had
our history not been so terribleat receiver, you can we
probably be arguing thatsomebody else had a better
(38:59):
rookie season than him.
But being that our history isso terrible at receiver, for the
most part I believe, yeah, thatwhat he's doing is the most
impressive rookie season we'veseen.
Now, look, I just pulled up FredTaylor's stats.
Now, he didn't start in everygame, he, it was what 15 games
played.
(39:20):
He started in 12.
He had one thousand two hundredtwenty three yards and 14
touchdowns, had 1,223 yards and14 touchdowns.
But I guess, like that's solong ago in our minds that we
don't remember it as as well.
But as great of a season asthat was the Allen brothers I,
if I can recall they.
They had standout seasons, buta lot of what they were doing
(39:42):
right was because the Jaguarswere playing from behind, a lot
in the Gus Bradley era, right,and they just had to just go all
pass in the last two quarters,you know, or the last quarter,
whatever the case may be.
So their stats, albeit, youknow, I don't want to take
anything from what they wereable to do.
I love the Allen brothers, buttheir stats were kind of padded
(40:04):
and inflated for that reason, Iguess I would say because they
were playing from behind a lot.
Jalen Ramsey yeah, he had apretty impressive rookie season,
but with cornerbacks, you know,it just don't pop out as much
as a receiver right, a receiveris, you know, a guy that's
always at the forefront offootball, aside from the
quarterback.
So for me, yeah, I feel likeBrian Thomas Jr is having the
(40:29):
most impressive season as arookie and also too though this
is the thing about it is he's 45yards away from 1,000 and what
we have, even after this game,he has two more games to you
know further, put up some morestats and he can get closer to
this number.
I just mentioned for fredtaylor, who, you know, again, he
had over 1 200 rushing yards,so he could get closer to that
(40:54):
by um, making the most of thoselast two games.
And well, the third, the gamethat's coming up this week as
well, but the last two games aswell.
So I'm gonna be watching.
Man been very impressed withwhat the young man has done, man
and I'm I'm happy we got him.
You know we complain a lot abouthow the season is going, but
one thing I will say that hasreally, really made the games
(41:18):
watchable and gives me some kindof ray of hope, some kind of
glimmer of hope, is him andwatching him and Trevor Lawrence
when they connect and you know,even Matt Jones finally
figuring out well, I guess DougPeterson and Press Taylor
finally figuring out that youknow he can help elevate Matt
Jones when he's on the field asa backup.
(41:39):
So he's just a guy that hecould.
He could help both quarterbacksRight, and he's only going to
get better as a route runnerhe's.
He's not even polished as aroute runner.
Go just watch him on all 22 andthen some of the routes he's
running.
It's like man, like he's not astechnical as he could be just
yet.
So, yeah, the future is brightfor him, man and I.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
I think what he's doing is the most impressive
rookie season of any chat or atthe moment yeah, I will say I
think I'll give the slight edgeto Fred Taylor right now, until
the full season has completed.
So he does have the opportunityto be.
I will give that to Fred.
In 12 games started, 15 games,you know, 1200 yards, 17
(42:23):
touchdowns is crazy.
So I will give to him thatcrown to Freddie for right now.
But yeah, with four gamesremaining, brian Thomas Jr and
seemingly again you know theplay calling figuring out.
Oh, we should probably justfeed him the football.
I definitely think he has thechance to take that crown.
But this is beside the point,jay, but we talked about this
(42:46):
last week.
The fact that Fred Taylor is notin the hall of fame is criminal
.
Look at this five-year run herebetween 2000 and 2004 1600
yards.
He had an injury season in 2001but then came back, ran for
1700, 1700, 1942 in 2003, andthen 1569 in 2004.
(43:09):
That guy's not in the Hall ofFame man.
That is absolutely absurd andjust nothing but Jacksonville
Jaguar bias.
That's all that is is franchisebias, because if he played for
any other team he would haveagain walked into the Hall of
Fame by now and would have longhad his gold jacket.
But yeah, I'll give Fred Taylorthe edge right now, but Ryan
(43:31):
Thomas Jr is well on his way.
But I just had to throw thosenumbers out, jay, because that's
ridiculous from Freddie in thatfive-year span.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, man, sam Kovaris, longtime journalist for
Jacksonville.
Tavares, longtime journalistfor Jacksonville, he's the one I
think that is kind of thepresenter for Jaguars going into
the Hall of Fame.
Right, he's better than mebecause I'll be throwing some
cuss words in there to get Fred.
Maybe that's why I'm not thepresenter, but you got that
(44:03):
insane run from Fred man and heabsolutely should be in the Hall
of Fame.
Like, again, we all know, hadthat man not played for
Jacksonville he would be thereright now.
But yeah, one thing I wanted toadd too, phil, is you know we
can't discount the rookie seasonthat MJD had too, for the
(44:27):
simple fact that MJD was a kickreturner, a dynamic kick
returner too, from what I canrecall in his rookie season.
So, like, if you look at whathe was able to do as a kick
returner, you can kind of arguethat like, if my mind serves me
correctly, his rookie seasonthat he could have, he could
have been a pro bowler as aspecial teamer as a rookie, I
(44:49):
know he only put up like 900 andsome change as a rusher, which
I mean that's nothing light orsmall to look at either, but he
was in a.
You know, he was in a rotation,obviously, so he couldn't hit
that 1000 mark.
But MJD is another one thatkind of comes to mind just
because he was a utility guy,right.
So I don't know what you thinkabout his rookie season, but
(45:12):
that's one, two that probablyshould be up there for
Jacksonville Jaguars fans yeah,100%.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Yeah, mjd had, uh would have had an even better
season again if it wasn't arunning back by committee room.
So the fact that those twooverlap fred taylor and mjd
overlapping is kind of similarto.
Well, it's not totally the same, because what I was going to
compare it to is when luca anddirk played together for like
one season.
But dirk was a shell of himselfat that time.
(45:40):
His knees were were given outwhen fred taylor was still very
much a major, major contributoron a winning football team.
So it's not exactly the same,but like just two franchise
legends crossing over.
It's crazy that sometimes youthink that those two share in a
backfield at one point.
But yeah, mjd for sure deservesa shout out.
And then, yeah, it's just sohard to judge a DB's rookie
(46:01):
season outside of like, justinterceptions.
So that's why Jalen Ramsey,like, is a little bit further
down on the list.
But in terms of likeinterceptions, so that's why
Jalen Ramsey is a little bitfurther down on the list.
But in terms of cultural impact, I think Jalen Ramsey
definitely belongs in the topfive.
But yeah, jay, I wanted to endon some positivity.
Let's find some positives.
We've got to win this week,good things happening here in
Jacksonville.
Hopefully we're just a fewweeks away from both Trent
(46:24):
Baalke and Doug Peterson beingrelieved of their duties and we
can start fresh and, you know,look to the future.
But, jay, anything else youwant to mention here on this
episode before we wrap up andstart focusing on the next one
and focusing on who comes in thetown?
Oh yeah, we got anotherthrowback game coming up this
weekend.
We didn't even talk about that,but another throwback game the
New York Jets coming in.
They're a disaster too, youknow, worried that they might
(46:46):
pull out another victory, butwe'll see what happens.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Anything else you want to talk about before we get
out of here.
That's it, man.
And I did pull up those MJDkick return stats for his season
.
Yeah, he had a high that yearof 860 yards.
Even though he only had onekick return touchdown, he did
put the Jaguars in good fieldposition a bunch of times, if I
can recall that season.
(47:12):
So, yeah, man, that's all Iwanted to add.
As you said, man, anotherinteresting game coming up with
the throwback game, it's alwaysgood to it's the Colts, I
believe.
Right, leave, right, phil.
That's how bad the season hasbeen.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
We just take it on a Sunday by Sunday basis, but uh,
debbie, it's the Jets.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yeah, the Jets.
Okay, so Aaron Rodgers, yeah,because he was on Pat McAfee
talking noise about if he losesto Jacksonville or something
like that.
I saw that.
I didn't listen to the audio,but I saw, like the like, the
actual tweet of what was said.
But yeah, do your thing, aaronrogers, because we, you know, we
don't need any more wins atthis point.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Go on another darkness retreat and get the
hell out of here.
We don't need, we've, we've.
We don't need you in the nflanymore.
Aaron rogers, just get out.
We don't need.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Oh wow yeah, you know what.
That's an interesting topic ifwe ever start covering the nfl
in general again to feel it'llbe interesting to talk aaron
rogers and what his future holds, should he be back or whatever
the case may be, will he be back.
But that's uh, another topicfor another time for another
type of show.
(48:25):
But, yeah, as always, you allknow where to find us at TD
Jaguars pod for the Twitterhandle for the podcast.
At Phil the Filipino for Phil,at sports grind underscore done
for me all on Twitterwwwtouchdownjaguarscom for the
official site and shout outs toseat geek, your go-to ticketing
(48:47):
provider for your ticketingneeds for any event that you
need tickets for, and oursponsor for the show.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
That's right.
So everything once again is inthe link tree link of this and
every single episode.
So thank you guys so much forcontinuing to support, as it's
been a little bit of a roughseason.
You know the episodes have beensporadic in terms of releases
and uh, and that's just becauseyou know, jay and I've had a
whole lot going on.
So we appreciate everybody'spatience and continued support,
but we will continue to getbetter, continue to do better
(49:17):
and we'll keep you updated witheverything you need to know.
When it comes to thejacksonville jaguars, that is my
co-host, james johnson, I amphil smith, and do not forget to
tune in to Touchdown Jaguarsfor each and every Jaguar
podcast.
And we'll see you next time,folks.
Still ready.
And no, that is a no no.
Touchdown Jacksonville 109yards.
Incredible, incredible.
Play action Upstairs wide open.
Tommy Bohannon, touchdownJacksonville Looking for Jimmy
(00:52):
in the end zone.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Welcome to the Touchdown Jaguarspodcast.
Here are your hosts, jamesJohnson and Phil Smith.
Hey everyone, welcome back tothe Touchdown Jaguars podcast.
I am your co-host, phil Smith,and joining me, as always, is
(01:14):
your other co-host, jamesJohnson.
And Jay, what do you know it?
We are here on the afternoon ofWednesday, december 11th and
we're going to talk about a win.
Is it a win that benefits theteam in the long run?
We'll see, given how thingshave now sorted out in the draft
order.
We kind of touched on that onlast week's episode.
(01:35):
So if you want a little bitmore on that, definitely check
out last week's episode.
But yeah, jay, we haven't beenable to see this and talk about
a win in quite some time.
They snapped their five gamelosing streak.
So we're going to talk aboutthe game very briefly because,
as a lot of you know, and as youcan see by the score, there
wasn't too much to talk about.
I mean, I know a lot of funnytweets came out over the weekend
(02:01):
because of Calvin Ridley Shoutout to him.
But, yeah, really not a wholelot to discuss in terms of game
breakdown, but there weredefinitely some standouts that
you want to point out, and we'llalso talk about some news that
we put off from last week interms of an extension and also,
to end the episode on a positivenote, we will just talk about
what are the bright spots of the2024 season.
(02:22):
So, jay, happy to be back herewith you and, yeah, like I said,
talk about a win for brightspots of the 2024 season.
So, jay, happy to be back herewith you and, yeah, like I said,
talk about a win for a changeof pace.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, a victory.
Well, I can't say Monday, butvictory Wednesday episode.
We haven't had a victoryepisode in quite some time.
It was getting a littlerepetitive here talking about
the losses, although you know alot of people are upset that the
wind now kind of messes up ourdraft positioning.
(02:50):
I guess we can kind of talk onthat a little bit maybe, um, as
we get into the game.
But yeah, man, while we didmess up our draft positioning,
it never feels bad to beat thetitans right, especially in
Nashville, because we juststruggle there in our history
with them.
So you know, it never reallyfeels bad per se to beat the
(03:13):
Titans, our most hated rivals.
And yeah, as you said, man,while the score was the,
actually it was the lowestscoring game of the year for the
NFL.
By the way, phil, I called thatat the end of the broadcast
when I was watching the game,although it was that, we still
got a few good talking points todiscuss on it.
(03:34):
Can't wait to get into it andjust happy to be back in the
booth with you, my man, asalways, you know where to find
us.
You can find me at sportsgrind,underscore, done.
You can find Phil at Philgrind,underscore, done.
You can find phil at phil thefilipino, both on twitter, and
you can find the touchdownjaguars twitter handle at td
jaguars pod.
Of course, the website iswwwtouchdownjaguarscom, and also
(04:00):
shout outs to seat geek.
Who is your go-to provider foryour ticketed needs, for
whatever event it is that youwant to go to, whether it's
sports concerts, you name it.
They got you covered.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, all that will be in the Linktree link in the
show notes of this episode.
But, jay, we are going to pivothere actually to some breaking
news that just came out of thesports world.
That will be.
It's very interesting to usbecause it's going to prevent
something from happening here inJacksonville.
Jay, the North Carolina TarHeels have are finalizing a deal
to land Bill Belichick as itsnext head football coach.
(04:36):
This is according to multiplereports that are now coming out.
So we've been kind of followingthis here, of course, as the uh
, you know a lot of fans, youknow, wanting to make sure bill
stayed away from duval county,trevor, lawrence, all of it, and
looks like we are going to beable to avoid that for now, jay.
So, uh, there you have it andwant to get your immediate
(04:57):
reaction bill belichick isheading to the college ranks to
be the head coach of the northcarolina tar heels yeah, shout
outs to Boogie for putting it inour thread.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And, as we said in the past, right, phil, this is
just the world of podcastingthat we live in right now.
We can get stuff on the spot.
Man, it's crazy where we comefrom.
We used to do blog, talk radionow, and now we can get stuff on
the spot, you know, basicallyin terms of from Twitter or
wherever it is it came from.
But, yeah, shout outs to Boogieto getting that to us.
(05:27):
It looks like it was reported by24-7 Sports.
As we all know, they coverrecruiting and college football,
college basketball, things ofthat nature.
So, you know, this is fantasticnews.
Fantastic news because, just assure as Bill Belichick was a
free agent, the cons were goingto have interest, right, and
(05:50):
it's so important because, maybenot for north carolina, they
might be hating this, um, butthen again, who knows, maybe
bill belichick could be a goodcollege coach.
We'll see.
But this is important because,as I mentioned you, if the cons
brought in Bill Belichick, allof the reports were saying that
he wanted full power.
Of course he wanted full powerbecause that's pretty much what
(06:12):
he had, at least for the mostpart, with the Patriots and as,
as we've discussed.
I don't know if we discussed iton this podcast Maybe we have
but at least put it on Twitter.
Bill Belichick is not a greatscout or executive, and that's
not to take away from his Hallof Fame coaching career.
Great coach, fantastic coach,but as a scout, you know, that
(06:36):
would be something that I feellike he should leave in someone
else's hands.
If he was going to come toJacksonville and with him, being
the scout that he is, would wetrust any GM that he would
choose?
You know.
So like that also opens upanother conversation.
So shout outs to the CarolinaTar Heels for helping us dodge a
(06:56):
bullet there.
Now we just got to get TrentBaalke up out of here.
But shout outs to Carolina allthe Jazz fans out there Go ahead
and send some donations toCarolina, because they saved us
from a grave mistake.
And again, the only hurdle nowto clear field getting Trent
Balky up out of here and, ofcourse, doug Peterson, that goes
without saying.
But most importantly, gettingTrent Balky up out of here.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, you said it for a while now.
You know just how enamored thecons are with Bill Belichick.
And listen, no one can evertake away what Bill Belichick
did in terms of his run with TomBrady.
Obviously, all of that iscemented in stone in terms of
his legacy.
He's going to moonwalkbackpedal, do whatever, bray
Wyatt backwards, walk into theHall of Fame.
So none of that is underinvestigation.
(07:45):
But yeah, in terms of how thingswent in those final years of
the new england patriots, thatis not something that we needed
here in jacksonville.
So good news, more good newshere on a wednesday afternoon.
But, jay, let's get into somenews that came out last week in
terms of an extension foroffensive tackle walker little
Per over the cap.
Little's deal is worth $40.5million in total value, includes
(08:08):
a $25.944 million fullyguaranteed salary with a $25.5
million in new guarantees, topair with a $444,256 guarantee
on the final season of hisrookie contract this year.
The pay bump makes him the 14thhighest paid left tackle in the
NFL on average annual value perover the cap, and he ranks 15th
(08:32):
at his position in totalguaranteed money.
That is per Zach Goodall of theJaguars.
Shout out to him.
So, jay, I know for some reason,like Walker Little, has always
been a little bit of apolarizing figure when it comes
to some Jaguar fans.
I know you know we bring upBoogie all the time.
A lot of our audience doesn'teven know who Boogie is in terms
(08:53):
of a person.
They just know who he isbecause we talk about him on
this podcast a lot, but hedidn't seem to be very thrilled
with this.
But I mean again, when you lookat the money, when you look at
the fact that you know theyfinally got Cam Robinson up out
of here and, jay, you made areally good point about Walker
Little in terms of the footballplayer and how much time he has
had to play football and withhim being in and out of the
(09:15):
rotation all the time, he'snever really gotten the full
opportunity to develop hisskills and now he's going to be
able to do that.
So please tell our audienceabout that and your how you feel
about the extension overallyeah, well, yeah, as you were.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
You were saying one of the issues we bring up walker
little a lot in this podcastand one of the issues I've
always had wasn't evennecessarily tied to him and his
skill set, but more so tied towe drafted somebody that was
getting very little play time.
That was a swing tackle in thesecond round, right, and I think
we used that pick that DaveCaldwell got, one of the picks
(09:52):
that Dave Caldwell got forYannick and Gakwe to get Walker
Little.
We used that on Walker Little,should I say, and when you get a
second round pick, as we'vesaid, phil, many, many times,
any, anybody you're taking inthe top three rounds in any
draft that's reasonably equipped, you're gonna start her right.
(10:12):
And for them to go this long,we're in year four for Walker
Little, right, and you know,realize that he needs to be the
left tackle of the future.
That's malpractice, right.
This should have beenestablished long before now and
essentially what you're doing,you're giving him a contract off
of limited work.
(10:32):
Now, that being said, to WalkerLittle's defense, as you were
saying we have discussed in ourtext thread is, you know, some
people may be upset with it, butat the end of the day, walker
Little hasn't played a lot offootball, at least not as much
as you would want for startingleft tackle.
So he's still developing.
(10:54):
And it's hard to develop whenyou're in and out of a lineup,
especially at left tackle.
And I've said this, you'redealing with arguably the most
gifted, physically giftedathlete on the field in a
defensive end or outsidelinebacker, whatever the case
may be.
And to be able to learn theposition while being in and out
of the lineup it's just simplynot doable, you know.
(11:17):
So I think what helped them getto this point, of course, was
to get Cam Robinson out of here,which he should have been long
out of here anyway.
I'm not sure why they held onto him as long as they did.
He was a Dave Caldwell pickthat Trent Baalke extended, and
then not only extended.
We had Walker Little, we hadAnton Harrison, so like that
(11:41):
caused some conflict right there, you got three left tackles.
I mean I guess like in this dayand age it don't hurt to have
three guys that can start attackle, but you end up with a
situation like we had, whereWalker Little has predominantly
spent more time on the benchthan he has spent on the field
Now, thankfully well, I don'twant to say thankfully, because
it involves injury, but what Iwill say, what has helped walker
(12:04):
little, although he's been inthe lineup sporadically and not
consistently?
Um, cam robertson did miss a lotof games, right, so he is
somewhat polished, but it's justmore so.
You need that consistency atleft tackle because again, the
weekend and week out, you'redealing with arguably the best
athlete on the field.
(12:25):
So you know he's going to takehis lumps because he's still
relatively, when you look atstarts, in terms of starts he's
still relatively a young player,right, and not to mention, in
college he didn't play a loteither.
He was, you know, he wasinjured coming out of college
too.
So he's going to take his lumps.
It's not going to look perfect.
That's one thing I want peopleto understand about Walker
(12:46):
Little.
It's not going to look perfect.
He's going to take his lumps.
It's going to be times where itlooks like his head is spinning
because he hasn't necessarilystarted in a lot of games
consistently.
But make no mistake about it,the skill set is there.
We're talking about a guy.
I think when I researched himyears ago, when we first drafted
him, he was like the number onecollege recruit on.
(13:09):
It might've been 24-7 or one ofthe big recruiting sites that
does that stuff, but he was likethe number one college recruit
coming out of college.
So the talent is there.
We've seen it at times and thenat times we've seen them
struggle again.
With consistency the struggleswill go away, but the skill set,
the size, the height, theweight is there and, um, you
(13:30):
know, I like this from thestandpoint, this signing, from
the standpoint of now.
We don't have to go into thedraft and hopefully trent
balky's not making the call, butwe don't have to go into the
draft saying, hey, we need aleft tackle and probably a guard
and a center, you know, cominginto the draft.
So it kind of eliminates one ofthose needs we have on the
(13:51):
offensive line going into nextoffseason.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah, I'm very much on board with this move and
definitely think that Walker hasearned the opportunity to
become the left tackle of thefuture.
And you know, I think that morepeople kind of keep up with our
buddy, daniel Griffiths, whowill come up a little bit later
in this episode.
You'll know how well he hasplayed since taking over full
(14:17):
time for Cam Robinson, so I dothink that big things are in his
future.
Like you said, we've talkedabout him quite a bit here on
this podcast, dating back to thedraft process, because we had
mocked him to us for months andthen he ended up being the
selection.
So we were definitely excitedabout that.
And, yeah, he's going to takethose lumps, he's going to have
(14:38):
lapses about that.
And, yeah, he's going to takethose lumps, he's going to have
lapses.
But as he continues to get morecomfortable with the position
and, you know, just kind offigure things out build up his
chemistry with the rest of theguys as well as, of course, you
know, trevor Lawrence I meanhe's been there with him since
day one, so I'm sure thatalready has been established for
the most part.
Here we go.
Here's a good tweet from now.
This is from december 5th, so Ihaven't seen this number
(15:00):
updated uh since um thetennessee game.
But in terms of walker,little's uh pressure percentage
allowed for pff 2022 10.1percent, 2023 6.3 and then 2024
4.3.
So playing very well, veryexcited for him and excited the
again the growth of theoffensive line.
(15:23):
But, jay, let's move into theactual football that took place
on the field here this pastSunday.
As we mentioned, it wasn'tnecessarily a shootout, but it
was a matchup between two badteams, things obviously not
going very well for Tennesseeeither, and I guess that's one
of those saving graces.
Right?
You just talked about it in thebeginning of the episode.
It's always nice to beatTennessee.
(15:44):
It's also always nice to seeTennessee struggling, and they
certainly did, as theJacksonville Jaguars went up to
Nashville and won Somethingagain.
That doesn't happen very often,especially in the history of
this podcast, but also just inthe history of the franchise in
general.
The Jaguars win 10-6 inNashville behind pretty much a
(16:04):
really great defensive effort inTank Bigsby.
Jay, I just want to get yourthoughts on this game because
you did just get to watch thecondensed version here today.
I watched it live, but I wasalso doing some things in
between the game.
It's just so hard to watch thisfootball team, even when
they're winning.
Um other than you know the thebright spots that we'll talk
(16:25):
about here in just a moment,after we discuss the game.
Uh, but yeah, what takeawaysdid you have?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
because I know you were pretty impressed by some
defensive efforts yeah, man, um,one thing, one of the things
that stood out to me, especiallylike within the first few
drives, was the defensive line.
They were making plays.
Now, that's not to say that thetitans didn't have some good
runs in there, but it looks likethey were mostly like
linebacker based mistakes.
(16:51):
Um, that led to those runs.
But the defensive line to mereally stood out and, like each
member of the starting group,made an impact play, as I was
telling you before we startedrecording.
You know you got Mason Smith,who's coming into his own right
these last few weeks now thathe's not being marked as
inactive, which you know.
(17:13):
That's a whole nother story fora whole nother time.
You know, doug trying tosabotage Balky which I guess if
you're in Doug's shoes you wouldget it but at the same time you
want to put out the bestplayers out there to help you
win at the same time.
But, yeah, mason Smith wasmaking some plays and you know
getting off of blocks andstopping the running back from
(17:34):
making too much penetration intothe past, the line of scrimmage
.
Then you um Devon Hamilton, whomade a play here and there, you
know Devon Hamilton foundhimself in the backfield.
I know he made a tackle onPollard I think it was like two
yards deep into the backfieldand really he just caught
Pollard before he can get going.
It was like the play was overbefore it kind of even took into
(17:57):
uh to effect.
And then, um, josh Allen, ofcourse he did his thing.
He had a sack, uh, at late inthe second or the uh yeah, that
was the second quarter that hehad as well where he just
straight up like blasted uh willlevis and I thought they were
going to flag him because hekind of landed on will levis,
(18:17):
but they didn't, but blasted himat the end of the second
quarter and that, I think, ledto a fumble.
But it might have beenrecovered.
I'll have to go back and lookat that.
But nonetheless, though, he hada good game.
That sack aside, he was beinghimself Josh Allen, all over the
field making plays, not justtowards the quarterback but
(18:39):
making plays in the run game andwhat have you.
And Trayvon Walker too.
He was a very physical presenceon the edge and, um, it was, I
think, early in the first half.
He might have saved thetouchdown there early in the
first half, or it might havebeen the second half.
But, yeah, he had a play, avery impactful play, where, in a
game as low scoring as it wasthe lowest scoring game of the
(19:01):
year in the NFL, he had a playthere where he say the touchdown
that probably would have beenball game right.
So you know he, he deserves aunsung hero hat or whatever you
want to call it a game ball,whatever the case may be.
So that was the biggest partthat stood out to me.
Also, you know, matt Jones is.
(19:22):
Matt Jones Wasn't veryimpressive, but I think what
happened to get the Jaguarsoffense going in the third
quarter and fourth quarter?
They started to go to BrianThomas Jr more and started to
realize, hey, this dude isliterally open all the time and
the Titans can't do anythingwith him.
Nobody has right, phil, none ofthese teams that we've seen
(19:44):
have been able to stop BrianThomas.
The only thing stopping BrianThomas is Press Taylor and our
offensive line, at times notgiving the quarterback enough
time and sometimes TrevorLawrence not making the best
decisions or overthrowing him.
So they found out, hey, itfinally clicked like, hey, let's
keep going to him.
I think he had four catches ina row at one point and it
(20:08):
finally clicked on him.
They even talked about it inthe press conference I think it
was Doug that said it and that'swhat got the offense going.
Now again, they didn't score alot of points, but what put them
in the position to score thepoints that they did was the
impact of Brian Thomas.
You can sprinkle in aoccasional good ETN run or catch
and a good occasional TankBigsby run or catch and that's
(20:31):
pretty much what the offense interms of the points that they
put up.
That's what helped them to getto where they were.
So that was my biggest takeaway.
Also shout outs to jorian jones,who had a phenomenal game.
He should have been the game'smvp if he wasn't, uh, but he had
a phenomenal game, made severalpaths break up, at least two or
(20:52):
three that I saw.
Um, he got a sack as well.
He was sticking his nose in therun game too, which is
something like me and youalready kind of knew about
jorian because we had thisdiscussion like weeks ago of um.
You know where he ranked on pffin terms of his run support
status, um, but yeah, he wassticking his nose in the run
(21:14):
game near the line of scrimmageas well, which kind of went
under the radar.
Of course you always see thepass related stuff because he's
a corner, but he's the guythat's not scared to play near
the line of scrimmage and makean impact there, as we saw with
the sack, as we saw with some ofthe stops that he made near the
line of scrimmage.
So shout-outs to him and I'mvery excited to see where the
future goes for him.
(21:34):
We mocked him to us, so anybodywe mock to us, we're always
happy to see when they actuallyend up on the team and, um, yeah
, I think we might be cookingwith grease with him and, uh,
time will tell um what we havein him.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I'm excited for his future yeah, man to bring up
boogie again.
Uh, he is an fsu fan.
He saw this coming.
Uh, jerry and jones is easilygoing to be a fan favorite for a
very, very long time.
Would not be a surprise, jay,if we saw some more Jerrion
Jones jerseys popping up in thecrowd at the games.
I will actually get to go tothe game this Sunday, so excited
(22:11):
for that.
It'll be the first home game Iget to attend since what?
October?
Because again just beentraveling, been so busy and the
team's not very fun to watchbecause of the aforementioned
Mac Jones.
But the defense may be worth theprice of admission as of right
now because, like you said, theyare cooking.
And yeah, josh Allen, like yousaid, had that sack.
(22:31):
I was definitely worried alsothat he was going to get called
for that penalty.
Continuing to see Mason Smithout there trying to pull up the
snap count that here it is thedefensive line snap count from,
once again, daniel Griffiths, 51for Josh Hines-Allen, 48 for
Trayvon Walker, 39 for MasonSmith, 38 for Hamilton, 33 Eric
(22:53):
Armstead, 25 for Tyrell Laceyand 18 for Jeremiah Ledbetter.
So, yeah, we're seeing thosenumbers, those snap counts raise
, go up for Mason Smith, soexcited for him to continue to
progress whenever we get thisnew defensive coordinator in
here and he gets moreopportunities.
But yeah, jim, in terms of, likethe Mac Jones thing, you know,
like I can't believe.
At one point there were peoplecalling for him to maybe get a
(23:17):
shot, even before Trevor gothurt.
This is who Mac Jones is.
This is who got Bill Belichickessentially fired and kicked out
of the building.
Bill Belichick, that guy, youknow, who has all those
accolades that I talked aboutearlier, but Mac Jones he is.
I don't even know if he is asecond string quarterback at
this point, right, jay?
(23:37):
I mean, with the way that youknow, some of these other teams
have guys that can come in andat least win you games.
I mean, I don't know that MacJones.
I don't know what roster heends up on next year.
Do you bring him back just forthe continuity and the vibes?
I mean, he seems like a goodlocker room guy, but he's
certainly not a very goodquarterback.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah, I would.
I would definitely say and I'mnot even being funny when I say
this that, uh, his play hashelped his chances to return as
a a backup quarterback with theJacksonville Jaguars.
Now, when you look at and I youknow I've praised him as a
backup quarterback, but neverhave I been one of those people
saying like he'll start overTrevor Lawrence one day, like
(24:21):
that never was a thing that evencrossed my mind.
I don't know how that even cameto fruition, but that's neither
here or neither there.
But that being said, one thingI will say about Mack is you do
want somebody with a lot ofexperience as your backup
quarterback.
That he has.
(24:41):
Um, now again, you know hehasn't had the best showings
when he started for us and whathave you.
But it's times where you look atmac right, and I know the
preseason is kind of vanilla,but you see enough to believe
like, hey, I would like to runit back as a, you know, you know
second year with him in termsof having him as a second year
with him in terms of having himas a number two, and maybe he
takes a leap as a backupquarterback.
(25:04):
But I guess, before we answerthat question we got who's our
coach, what kind of system we'rerunning, all of that good stuff
, and then you can kind ofdecipher if Matt Jones is a good
choice to be back as the secondstring guy.
But yeah, to answer yourquestion, I don't think nobody's
choice to be back as the secondstring guy.
But yeah, to answer yourquestion, I don't think nobody's
going to be throwing crazymoney at him in terms of
bringing him in as a starter,because that was the thought
(25:26):
process heading into this season, like especially when looking
at the preseason but again, youhave to be careful with the
preseason but a lot of peoplewere like, oh yeah, matt jones
not going to be here long term,somebody's gonna throw him a lot
of money next and he's going to, you know, end up starting for
some.
Somebody, or a lot of peoplewere saying, towards the trade
deadline, right, it's like let'strade mac jones to the
(25:47):
minnesota vikings.
Like did the minnesota vikingswant mac jones?
Like you have to ask yourselfthat.
But I think he's certainly donehimself a favor, or well, he's
done jags fans a favor in termsof his chances to remain in
Jacksonville, because I don'tthink like he's gonna have like
this extensive line or theseextensive contracts thrown at
(26:10):
him in the offseason.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, we discussed this a couple of weeks ago in
terms of the upcomingquarterback market.
It's not very good as far asfree as teams than Mac Jones.
So, yeah, it seems like he'llprobably stick around and yeah,
(26:41):
that's a good point.
You know you don't want to.
You want a guy to stick aroundthat has the experience.
Once again, I think he isdefinitely a very good locker
room guy and obviously, himbeing local, you know that's a
little bit of a bonus as well.
It just depends on the money.
You know you certainly aren'tgoing to pay him you much.
But yeah, I don't think anyone'sgoing to be calling or
clamoring for Mac Jones to betheir guy.
(27:01):
If anything, that maybe youhave competition in terms of a
backup quarterback, you know, interms of familiarity somewhere
else with him.
But yeah, not too worried aboutgetting outbid for Mac Jones.
If they want to do that, youknow by all means he can have
them.
But, jay, anything else youwant to mention in terms of this
game before we talk about again, to wrap up this episode, just
(27:22):
a positive in terms of theseason overall.
Anything else you want tomention in terms of the
performance of the team, onceagain coming away with a victory
over the Tennessee Titans,although it did come at the cost
of dropping from number one inthe draft order to number five
although it did come at the costof dropping from number one in
the draft order to number five.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, I guess we can talk about it.
How do you feel about the win?
Because it is a win over theTitans, right.
So, like some people might feelindifferent, while some people
might be like I'll take a lossover the Titans if it keeps us
at the number one overall pick.
How do you feel about wherewe're positioned at in the draft
right now and um, that winbasically taking us out of the
travis hunter race, for now atleast?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
yeah, I don't feel very good.
I know people always want tobeat tennessee, I totally get
that.
But it reminded me a lot of afew years back when the jaguars
played indianapolis in week six,week 17, and if they, if
indianapolis had won, they wouldnot have gotten the number one
overall pick to draft andrewluck.
And I was clamoring for thejaguars to lose that game.
(28:30):
Not that you know teams are outhere throwing games, you know.
You know these, like theseplayers, livelihoods depend on
it and no one's out hereintentionally tanking for the
most part.
But I was clamoring for thejaguars to lose that game and
keep andrew luck out ofindianapolis.
And, lo and behold, that didn'thappen.
Now, the events that came afterandrew luck being in
indianapolis, you know, veryunfortunate.
(28:51):
That's what they get for notprotecting a generational guy,
but that's a topic for anothertime.
But yeah, I don't feel goodbecause he's not going to.
If New England is picking atthree, he is not going to get
past number three.
I do think if it stays the wayit is, las Vegas and New York
take quarterbacks.
I think Vegas is a shoe in forShador Sanders and I think the
(29:11):
Giants will take Cam Ward.
Now again, we're in Decemberand we know how crazy things can
change in a short amount oftime.
But there are two.
There is one team, jay, thatcan help us quite a bit here in
terms of the draft order, and doyou know who that team is?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Not Carolina, is it?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
It is your Atlanta Falcons, not Carolina, is it?
It is your Atlanta Falcons.
They play Vegas and New Yorkback to back and Kirk Cousins
man is looking terrible rightnow.
He hasn't thrown a touchdownpass in a month and if he can
gift the Raiders and the Giantsa couple of wins here back to
back, then we'll find ourselvesright back in the mix.
But yeah, jacksonville, I think, think, has to pick in the top
(29:58):
three, bare minimum to have ashot at him.
But, however, this is a gooddraft in terms of being in the
top five to like eight range.
I think you're going to get areally, really elite talent and
yeah, and you know, with theright GM, you know we should be
cooking, but yeah, I don't feelgood about it.
But again, shout out to yourFalcons.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
They can help us out this week, these next couple
weeks let's go kurt cousins,right, but yeah, no, like it now
I'll say that it doesn't feelgreat to lose out on a talent
like travis hunter, but then, atthe end of the day, like when I
look at it right, you'reprobably looking at like you
went from basically being ableto get somebody, like if you
(30:36):
were on the, the hype train ofgetting a wide receiver right,
you went from being able to getTravis Hunter to being in the
range to get T-Mac and who forthose of you who don't know who
T-Mac is, that's the kid inArizona State who now I
admittedly I have to watch somemore film on T-Mac, but
everything that I see in termsof highlights and what have you
(30:58):
on him is pretty impressive.
And like, when I look at thatkid, I'm just like, oh wow, you
put him next to brian thomas jr,like you know and I don't want
this to happen because we'vecomplained about not running the
ball in the past but it's likewe'll never run the ball if we
got t-mac and brian thomas jrrunning routes out there, and
then you sprinkle in probablywhat'll be Evan Ingram coming
(31:19):
back right and then probablywhat'll be Parker Washington in
the slot because, as we all knowChristian Kirk's contract is
kind of getting to the pointwhere he might be expendable.
You know you're looking atprobably a decent little group
there, you know what I'm saying.
So like to go from being ableto get Travis Hunter to getting
(31:39):
T-Mac at receiver.
I don't know if the drop-off isthat significant.
Again, I want to watch somefilm on T-Mac.
There's also the kid his nameis escaping me that goes to
Michigan.
The defensive tackle who couldbe available, which we don't
really need.
A defensive tackle.
We just talked about how MasonSmith is playing, but, um, he is
(32:04):
every time I go on Twittersomebody's putting a highlight
of him just wrecking havoc.
So, uh, you can never have toomany big guys, right, that's the
me and you kind of talked aboutthat in the thread with Georgia
.
That's how Georgia hasmaintained their dominance a
little bit and we're able to getthrough that stretch early in
the season where they would justbeat up.
But you know, we'll see, timewill tell if it's a costly
mistake.
But hey, man, the Falcons, man,our, you know you can say
(32:27):
arguably them and the Panthersare arguably our like sister NFC
teams, kind of because of theproximity and just kind of how
we kind of have builtrelationships with them over the
years.
They could help us out a lothere.
So you know, kurt Cochranes, goout there and throw as many
picks as you want.
I think what you have to worryabout is if they put Michael
(32:49):
Pendix out there and there's nofilm on him and he just goes
crazy.
But you know for now, if theysit with Kurt Cochranes or
Jagwars might get a favor or twothere.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yeah, and that receiver is Teteroa McMillan
sorry, from Arizona.
As you mentioned, pff'ssecond-ranked player on their
big board as of December 4th,and then Travis Hunter is number
one.
Mason Graham is the player youwere thinking of, jay, so you
know, adding another Mason tothe interior defensive line.
What do you think about theidea of people throwing Ashton
(33:21):
Jenty out there, I thinksomewhere between like the 8 to
12 range, if they were to pullout another couple wins.
Any interest in bringing thatguy in and pairing him with Tank
Bigsby, because I'm not reallysure what's going to happen with
Travis Etienne?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Well, that's the big question, though, phil.
Who's our next coach andoffensive coordinator, right?
I don't know if it will be BenJohnson, but if it's Ben Johnson
, I can see a place on hisroster for Travis Etienne and a
significant role for him andTank Bixby, because what Ben
Johnson is doing with the tworunning backs that he has Sonic
(34:02):
and Knuckles over there in theLions, you know, it would seem
that he wants two running backsthat have that bring two
different dynamics to an offense, and that's what kind of has
made the lions as dangerous asthey have been.
I I would take ben johnson withtank bigsby and travis etn any
(34:22):
day over press taylor with themright.
In short, to.
To put it in short, um.
So, yeah, it just depends onwho the offensive coordinator
and the head coach is.
Genti is is extremely talented,don't get me wrong, and I know
we live in a day and time, andme and you have said this right,
taking running backs in thefirst round is kind of a no, but
(34:45):
it's been some special guysthat have made me look stupid
when it comes to that model,right, most notably one of which
you would know right from texasdamn, I'm blanking on his name
phil bijan, yeah, bijanrobertson.
And bijan robertson, who hasdone some great things with
(35:06):
atlanta falcons, make no mistakeabout it.
The falcons aren't losingbecause bijan robertson right.
So that's not why, uh, you findspecial talents like him and
even I mean even travis etn,where he was drafted what?
25th overall, something likethat.
When you look at aside from thisyear, you look at wait, they've
(35:26):
gotten out of him the yearsprior.
You can't say he's, he's been abust per se for a running back
that you took late in the firstround.
We've gotten some first roundtalent out of him and some first
round performances out of him.
And again, we could continue toget that if we get a Ben
(35:47):
Johnson or you know whoever thecase may be.
So I think a lot of that justdepends on who's calling the
plays, and you know if you havesomebody that also a GM, that's
coming in here and looking atyou know what Trent Baalke did
wrong and is looking to get thatout of here as quickly as
possible.
To establish a culture like thisis where the last regime messed
(36:08):
up.
We're going to fix this as soonas possible.
If you got it, you have a GMthat wants to make that type of
statement and starts cleaningthe house and getting the quote,
unquote, balking mistakes outof the building, then you know,
maybe you know you might have aGM that wants to, is looking
towards maybe trading E10 orsomething like that, but I don't
know.
I think if you made me putmoney on it right now, I believe
(36:33):
that the two running backs thatwe have now most bright
offensive minds, would probablybe fine with them.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, I totally agree .
Just been seeing AshtonJenties' name thrown out there a
lot by Jaguar fans, andunderstandably so.
He is outstanding.
He is the rightful HeismanTrophy winner.
I'm not even sure why.
It is a debate which is insane.
But honestly, ashton Jentiesshould just get fitted for his
Dallas Cowboy jersey right now,because I don't see him going
(37:04):
anywhere else other than theDallas Cowboys.
So we'll see.
But let's pivot here, jay, tothe last topic and stop
discussing future rookies onthis team and talk about one
that we have right now, who isjust lighting it up and you
already talked about him, youknow, during your breakdown and
that is Brian Thomas Jr.
And it just brought up thethought that I wanted to discuss
(37:26):
here because of, again, anothertweet we saw from Daniel
Griffiths.
We need to get him back on, bythe way, at the end of the
season to discuss everythingthat happened but he tweeted out
Brian Thomas Jr is on pace for71 catches, 1,113 yards and
eight touchdowns.
This would break all rookiereceiving records 64 catches,
(37:47):
which is held by Justin Blackman, 865 yards, also held by
Blackman, and then sixtouchdowns, which he's already
tied Alan Hearns with his rookieseason.
So the question that I have foryou, jay, and also our audience
, is Brian Thomas Jr, the bestrookie in Jaguar history.
We were trying to think of someother names that we could throw
(38:09):
out there.
Probably Maurice Jones-Drewbelongs on that list.
Justin Blackman, even in hislimited time, probably belongs
on that list.
The Allen brothers as a duoobviously was a really, really
fun time, even though the teamwasn't playing very well.
And maybe toss out some othernames that maybe you thought of.
(38:29):
Oh, jalen Ramsey, I think Imentioned.
But yeah, is Brian Thomas Jrthe best rookie in Jacksonville
Jaguar history?
Speaker 2 (38:38):
I think so.
To be honest with you.
Now, that's not a takeaway fromsome of these other rookie
seasons we've seen, but I thinkfor me a part of it is.
Our history at receiver hasbeen terrible, right, and had
our history not been so terribleat receiver, you can we
probably be arguing thatsomebody else had a better
(38:59):
rookie season than him.
But being that our history isso terrible at receiver, for the
most part I believe, yeah, thatwhat he's doing is the most
impressive rookie season we'veseen.
Now, look, I just pulled up FredTaylor's stats.
Now, he didn't start in everygame, he, it was what 15 games
played.
(39:20):
He started in 12.
He had one thousand two hundredtwenty three yards and 14
touchdowns, had 1,223 yards and14 touchdowns.
But I guess, like that's solong ago in our minds that we
don't remember it as as well.
But as great of a season asthat was the Allen brothers I,
if I can recall they.
They had standout seasons, buta lot of what they were doing
(39:42):
right was because the Jaguarswere playing from behind, a lot
in the Gus Bradley era, right,and they just had to just go all
pass in the last two quarters,you know, or the last quarter,
whatever the case may be.
So their stats, albeit, youknow, I don't want to take
anything from what they wereable to do.
I love the Allen brothers, buttheir stats were kind of padded
(40:04):
and inflated for that reason, Iguess I would say because they
were playing from behind a lot.
Jalen Ramsey yeah, he had apretty impressive rookie season,
but with cornerbacks, you know,it just don't pop out as much
as a receiver right, a receiveris, you know, a guy that's
always at the forefront offootball, aside from the
quarterback.
So for me, yeah, I feel likeBrian Thomas Jr is having the
(40:29):
most impressive season as arookie and also too though this
is the thing about it is he's 45yards away from 1,000 and what
we have, even after this game,he has two more games to you
know further, put up some morestats and he can get closer to
this number.
I just mentioned for fredtaylor, who, you know, again, he
had over 1 200 rushing yards,so he could get closer to that
(40:54):
by um, making the most of thoselast two games.
And well, the third, the gamethat's coming up this week as
well, but the last two games aswell.
So I'm gonna be watching.
Man been very impressed withwhat the young man has done, man
and I'm I'm happy we got him.
You know we complain a lot abouthow the season is going, but
one thing I will say that hasreally, really made the games
(41:18):
watchable and gives me some kindof ray of hope, some kind of
glimmer of hope, is him andwatching him and Trevor Lawrence
when they connect and you know,even Matt Jones finally
figuring out well, I guess DougPeterson and Press Taylor
finally figuring out that youknow he can help elevate Matt
Jones when he's on the field asa backup.
(41:39):
So he's just a guy that hecould.
He could help both quarterbacksRight, and he's only going to
get better as a route runnerhe's.
He's not even polished as aroute runner.
Go just watch him on all 22 andthen some of the routes he's
running.
It's like man, like he's not astechnical as he could be just
yet.
So, yeah, the future is brightfor him, man and I.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
I think what he's doing is the most impressive
rookie season of any chat or atthe moment yeah, I will say I
think I'll give the slight edgeto Fred Taylor right now, until
the full season has completed.
So he does have the opportunityto be.
I will give that to Fred.
In 12 games started, 15 games,you know, 1200 yards, 17
(42:23):
touchdowns is crazy.
So I will give to him thatcrown to Freddie for right now.
But yeah, with four gamesremaining, brian Thomas Jr and
seemingly again you know theplay calling figuring out.
Oh, we should probably justfeed him the football.
I definitely think he has thechance to take that crown.
But this is beside the point,jay, but we talked about this
(42:46):
last week.
The fact that Fred Taylor is notin the hall of fame is criminal
.
Look at this five-year run herebetween 2000 and 2004 1600
yards.
He had an injury season in 2001but then came back, ran for
1700, 1700, 1942 in 2003, andthen 1569 in 2004.
(43:09):
That guy's not in the Hall ofFame man.
That is absolutely absurd andjust nothing but Jacksonville
Jaguar bias.
That's all that is is franchisebias, because if he played for
any other team he would haveagain walked into the Hall of
Fame by now and would have longhad his gold jacket.
But yeah, I'll give Fred Taylorthe edge right now, but Ryan
(43:31):
Thomas Jr is well on his way.
But I just had to throw thosenumbers out, jay, because that's
ridiculous from Freddie in thatfive-year span.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, man, sam Kovaris, longtime journalist for
Jacksonville.
Tavares, longtime journalistfor Jacksonville, he's the one I
think that is kind of thepresenter for Jaguars going into
the Hall of Fame.
Right, he's better than mebecause I'll be throwing some
cuss words in there to get Fred.
Maybe that's why I'm not thepresenter, but you got that
(44:03):
insane run from Fred man and heabsolutely should be in the Hall
of Fame.
Like, again, we all know, hadthat man not played for
Jacksonville he would be thereright now.
But yeah, one thing I wanted toadd too, phil, is you know we
can't discount the rookie seasonthat MJD had too, for the
(44:27):
simple fact that MJD was a kickreturner, a dynamic kick
returner too, from what I canrecall in his rookie season.
So, like, if you look at whathe was able to do as a kick
returner, you can kind of arguethat like, if my mind serves me
correctly, his rookie seasonthat he could have, he could
have been a pro bowler as aspecial teamer as a rookie, I
(44:49):
know he only put up like 900 andsome change as a rusher, which
I mean that's nothing light orsmall to look at either, but he
was in a.
You know, he was in a rotation,obviously, so he couldn't hit
that 1000 mark.
But MJD is another one thatkind of comes to mind just
because he was a utility guy,right.
So I don't know what you thinkabout his rookie season, but
(45:12):
that's one, two that probablyshould be up there for
Jacksonville Jaguars fans yeah,100%.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Yeah, mjd had, uh would have had an even better
season again if it wasn't arunning back by committee room.
So the fact that those twooverlap fred taylor and mjd
overlapping is kind of similarto.
Well, it's not totally the same, because what I was going to
compare it to is when luca anddirk played together for like
one season.
But dirk was a shell of himselfat that time.
(45:40):
His knees were were given outwhen fred taylor was still very
much a major, major contributoron a winning football team.
So it's not exactly the same,but like just two franchise
legends crossing over.
It's crazy that sometimes youthink that those two share in a
backfield at one point.
But yeah, mjd for sure deservesa shout out.
And then, yeah, it's just sohard to judge a DB's rookie
(46:01):
season outside of like, justinterceptions.
So that's why Jalen Ramsey,like, is a little bit further
down on the list.
But in terms of likeinterceptions, so that's why
Jalen Ramsey is a little bitfurther down on the list.
But in terms of cultural impact, I think Jalen Ramsey
definitely belongs in the topfive.
But yeah, jay, I wanted to endon some positivity.
Let's find some positives.
We've got to win this week,good things happening here in
Jacksonville.
Hopefully we're just a fewweeks away from both Trent
(46:24):
Baalke and Doug Peterson beingrelieved of their duties and we
can start fresh and, you know,look to the future.
But, jay, anything else youwant to mention here on this
episode before we wrap up andstart focusing on the next one
and focusing on who comes in thetown?
Oh yeah, we got anotherthrowback game coming up this
weekend.
We didn't even talk about that,but another throwback game the
New York Jets coming in.
They're a disaster too, youknow, worried that they might
(46:46):
pull out another victory, butwe'll see what happens.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Anything else you want to talk about before we get
out of here.
That's it, man.
And I did pull up those MJDkick return stats for his season
.
Yeah, he had a high that yearof 860 yards.
Even though he only had onekick return touchdown, he did
put the Jaguars in good fieldposition a bunch of times, if I
can recall that season.
(47:12):
So, yeah, man, that's all Iwanted to add.
As you said, man, anotherinteresting game coming up with
the throwback game, it's alwaysgood to it's the Colts, I
believe.
Right, leave, right, phil.
That's how bad the season hasbeen.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
We just take it on a Sunday by Sunday basis, but uh,
debbie, it's the Jets.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yeah, the Jets.
Okay, so Aaron Rodgers, yeah,because he was on Pat McAfee
talking noise about if he losesto Jacksonville or something
like that.
I saw that.
I didn't listen to the audio,but I saw, like the like, the
actual tweet of what was said.
But yeah, do your thing, aaronrogers, because we, you know, we
don't need any more wins atthis point.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Go on another darkness retreat and get the
hell out of here.
We don't need, we've, we've.
We don't need you in the nflanymore.
Aaron rogers, just get out.
We don't need.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Oh wow yeah, you know what.
That's an interesting topic ifwe ever start covering the nfl
in general again to feel it'llbe interesting to talk aaron
rogers and what his future holds, should he be back or whatever
the case may be, will he be back.
But that's uh, another topicfor another time for another
type of show.
(48:25):
But, yeah, as always, you allknow where to find us at TD
Jaguars pod for the Twitterhandle for the podcast.
At Phil the Filipino for Phil,at sports grind underscore done
for me all on Twitterwwwtouchdownjaguarscom for the
official site and shout outs toseat geek, your go-to ticketing
(48:47):
provider for your ticketingneeds for any event that you
need tickets for, and oursponsor for the show.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
That's right.
So everything once again is inthe link tree link of this and
every single episode.
So thank you guys so much forcontinuing to support, as it's
been a little bit of a roughseason.
You know the episodes have beensporadic in terms of releases
and uh, and that's just becauseyou know, jay and I've had a
whole lot going on.
So we appreciate everybody'spatience and continued support,
but we will continue to getbetter, continue to do better
(49:17):
and we'll keep you updated witheverything you need to know.
When it comes to thejacksonville jaguars, that is my
co-host, james johnson, I amphil smith, and do not forget to
tune in to Touchdown Jaguarsfor each and every Jaguar
podcast.
And we'll see you next time,folks.
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