What if the Jaguars' disappointments are only setting the stage for their future triumphs? We're breaking down the recent loss to the 49ers and discussing how these bumps in the road may be essential lessons for the team's development. In this candid conversation, we reflect on the game, starting from the early struggles, the 49ers' unexpected recovery, to the Jaguars' offensive issues that amplified the defeat. We also tackle the thorny topic of Trevor Lawrence's challenges with an underperforming offensive line and how his past performances hint at his potential for future success.
Get ready to join us as we pull back the curtain on the tough realities that sometimes collide with our sporting world, like Zay Jones' recent troubles off the field. The second half of our discussion takes a closer look at the Jaguars' draft picks, the ripple effects of the team's struggles, and the implications for Doug Peterson. We'll also explore whether Press Taylor was the right choice for Offensive Coordinator, consider the potential of Mike McCoy, and highlight the importance of execution in offensive line play. We end the conversation on a hopeful note, discussing Lawrence's development and the team's best chances for victory. This episode isn't just an analysis, it's a journey through the highs and lows of football - don't miss it!
Touchdown Jaguars Linktree
Download the SeatGeek app & use code " TOUCHDOWNJAGUARS " for $20 off your first SeatGeek order!
James Johnson and Phil Smith 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.
What if the Jaguars' disappointments are only setting the stage for their future triumphs? We're breaking down the recent loss to the 49ers and discussing how these bumps in the road may be essential lessons for the team's development. In this candid conversation, we reflect on the game, starting from the early struggles, the 49ers' unexpected recovery, to the Jaguars' offensive issues that amplified the defeat. We also tackle the thorny topic of Trevor Lawrence's challenges with an underperforming offensive line and how his past performances hint at his potential for future success.
Get ready to join us as we pull back the curtain on the tough realities that sometimes collide with our sporting world, like Zay Jones' recent troubles off the field. The second half of our discussion takes a closer look at the Jaguars' draft picks, the ripple effects of the team's struggles, and the implications for Doug Peterson. We'll also explore whether Press Taylor was the right choice for Offensive Coordinator, consider the potential of Mike McCoy, and highlight the importance of execution in offensive line play. We end the conversation on a hopeful note, discussing Lawrence's development and the team's best chances for victory. This episode isn't just an analysis, it's a journey through the highs and lows of football - don't miss it!
Touchdown Jaguars Linktree
Download the SeatGeek app & use code " TOUCHDOWNJAGUARS " for $20 off your first SeatGeek order!
James Johnson and Phil Smith 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.
Welcome to the Touchdown Jaguars podcast. I am your co-host, phil Smith, and joining me, as always, is your other co-host, james Johnson and Jay. The saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and boy did they end. On Sunday for the Jacksonville Jaguars. All of these teams were coming off of their bye weeks. We thought this could only be a good thing Gives them the opportunity to get healthy, evaluate what they have been doing right, and then gives them two weeks to prepare for a very good San Francisco 49ers team, who also were on a bit of a slide. They had, or who were on a bit of a slide I should say losers of three straight. They were a little banged up. People were wondering about Brock Purdy. Is this the guy that's really going to elevate them and take them to the places they want to go? They sure picked a hell of a time to make a statement and unfortunately, jay, it was against our Jacksonville Jaguars at Everbank Field on Sunday.
Speaker 1:So I am looking forward to this conversation. As I know, a lot of the fan base is kind of scrambling right now, and rightfully so. We're going to break down some of our concerns, talk about how they can respond and discuss our outlook for this team. I know there is very much a sky is falling attitude around the fan base right now. And look, I get it. When you lose by 31, that's kind of just how people are going to react. So I am excited to have this conversation with you, but first and foremost, it's good to be back here with you after a break, and it seems like maybe the Jaguar shouldn't have taken a break. Maybe they should have just kept on playing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, now I get why. Doug, you know, mentioned like he had concerns. He mentioned this before the bi-week about how we would look after the bi-week and I'm not I don't remember how exactly he said it, but he had those concerns. So now I get it right. So, yeah, they look straight up, flat and outmanned and just the $49 is a little better than a than them in each and every aspect. So we'll break that down.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, glad to be back after a week of rest, man, and can't wait to talk about this game. Well, I guess this is one I'd rather forget. But yeah, we'll get some stuff off our chests. And, yeah, talk about what went down on Sunday, as the Jacksonville Jaguars have put up another loss that has a lot of people scratching their heads. But again, as we saw earlier in the year, I think the good thing about it is they shown that they can bounce back, which is something we'll talk about as well. So, yeah, as always, you already know where to find the our official site, should I say touchdown Jaguars and we got again articles on there. We got to update those archived episodes. You name it. Feel free to check that out and you can follow me at sportsgrondoncom, feel at field of Filipino and I like to pick it up from there with the rest of our house cleaning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, guys, everything you need is in the link tree link of the show notes, like Jay said, social media pages, website and the link to download the Seek Geek app so you can use our promo code touchdown Jaguar. Still a lot of football left to be played this year and an opportunity for you to go to some games and save some money courtesy of us and Seek Geek. Jay. Let's just jump right into it here, right? We have a lot to discuss and it was obviously a very long day for the fan base, for the team, for the coaching staff, and we've been kind of I wouldn't say dreading. This conversation, like you said, it's one we definitely would have, would like to forget. And we're on to Titans Hate Week. Right, but before we do that, we do have to, unfortunately, relive some of the events from this past.
Speaker 1:Sunday, the Jaguars fall to the San Francisco 49ers 34 to 3,. As we all know, the Jaguars were coming off the by, as were the Niners. The Jaguars had won five straight sitting at 6 and 2 and the Niners had lost three straight sitting at 5 and 3. For those of you that did not listen to our preseason episode, as far as predictions, I did predict that the San Francisco 49ers were going to go to the Super Bowl. I looked pretty darn good for the first five weeks of the season and then, you know, injury started to pile up for San Francisco and they lost those three straight. Brock Purdy didn't look very good and, of course, as in just typical fashion, all their players decided to get healthy right in time to play for the, just in time to play the Jacksonville Jaguars. That was Debo Samuel, christian McCaffrey, trent Williams, and boy did those guys make a big, big difference. So, jay again, man, I don't even know where to start with this one.
Speaker 1:From the get-go, the first two drives just set the tone for the entire day. The Jaguars go three and out, they punt, and then the Niners immediately go in and score off of a Brock Purdy throw that should have not been caught by. I believe it was Brandon Iuk. You got to knock that ball down or intercept it, something like that. From that point on, it just rolled downhill. There was really nothing the Jaguars could do on either side. They are certainly. Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come, but they were in a giving mood very, very early on giving the ball away, giving points away, and it just was not great. Jay, where would you like to start what was maybe the most concerning thing out of a long laundry list of concerning things?
Speaker 2:I mean I guess the most concerning thing is just the continued struggles of starting fast on offense. We talked about that earlier in the season and now we're revisiting it. We felt like they were getting past that after a few games. I think it was the Saints game. They got off to a fast start. The game before that. This was one of those games where the offense got off to a slow start. A lot of execution flaws. Doug Peterson talked about that today.
Speaker 2:I haven't gotten to see the full press conference but I've seen clips of it, but I had to work today. Yeah, man, a lot of just the Jaguars in terms of offensively shooting themselves in the foot. I can answer your question if it's something that we should get used to or get accustomed to. What I will say is this typically the Jaguars defense, they at least start fast. It was an abnormal start for them in the sense that most times they hold it down in the first two quarters. Maybe an offense finds their footing against them in the third quarter. Sometimes it's late in the second quarter, but for the most part they start pretty fast. I think the defense will get back to that, although again, we mentioned their limitations because they have one pass Russia, but at the same time I don't think they'll be facing offense as good as the 49ers. Heading forward, I think we'll, at the very least, heading forward, have better starts out of our defense. We did kind of see it later in the game and later in that first quarter, second quarter the defense did start to settle down and then the floodgates open and everything went wrong after that in the second half for both sides of the ball. In terms of my biggest concern that would probably be is the continued slow starts from the offense. How would we fix that? I think what we would do to fix that it's probably it's not as hard as we're making it out to be.
Speaker 2:In terms of fixing what's going on with the Jacksonville Jaguars, maybe get Travis ETN involved more. He's their best player on offense and they got away from him in this game. That's understandable when considering where they were after halftime, how you would get away from him. But maybe start getting him going early. That's how they had success in the games where they got off. The fast offensive starts is getting him involved, whether it's in the run game, getting him in space. Also, we found which shouldn't be a new found weapon in the Ernest Johnson. But we said it on this podcast that the Ernest Johnson should be taking the second stream running back snaps or RB two snaps. They got him out there and they really threw the 49ers defense off their game. They got him out there in space. There's some screens that in the other kind of slowed that pass rush down and then again in the second half everything just went down the toilet after that. But we saw an emergence of him and hopefully they get him more involved.
Speaker 2:Or Tate Bigsby, who continues to struggle. So I mean, I think when you look at those two players and also hopefully you get the addition of Zay Jones back, that'll help open up some things offensively as well, because you know Zay Jones is a critical part of this offense, who will also help Calvin really from a standpoint of getting him open and getting him more involved too. So I do think it's a lot of things that they can do heading forward to get off to faster offensive starts, but they just have to actually make the stuff come into fruition and, you know, put it into play. And again, with Zay you kind of have to got to. You have to wait until he returns, of course, from injury. But yeah, between those two, those three players, I do think the Jaguars can show us much more than they did in terms of the start that they had against San Francisco offensively this week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember before the buy you know we were talking about how Mike Caldwell could get some head coaching looks in the future. And listen, that could still happen because I think a lot of us are forgetting it was 13 to three at halftime. It was still very much within grasp at halftime and, honestly, based on the way that San Francisco was moving the football, like best case scenario, like you said, they just didn't get any assistance from the offense whatsoever. And shout out to Eric. Our buddy Eric, who we need to get back on here, went a little viral on Jack Warth's Twitter yesterday. Shout out to him because I think it was on the Hilarious tweet the drive.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, that's a whole other conversation We'll have to have a little bit later. But he pointed out, like I think it was the drive, right after they had gone up 20 to three and Eric just had this feeling that we're about to see a hero ball interception, the reception from Trevor Lawrence, and I think it was the one that flew off of Tank Bigsby's hands. And listen, I know a lot of people are upset with Tank Bigsby and he certainly has struggled and not been the weapon that we want him to be. But also, looking back at that play, trevor launches that thing pretty fast to a guy that's only a couple of yards away from him running back. That's not used to catching the ball. And listen, I'm not going to abstain Tank Bigsby from everything. But also, that's just as much on Trev as it is on Tank Bigsby.
Speaker 1:So I think Jay and we've talked about this throughout the entire season there is a lot of Trevor Lawrence hate, there's a lot of Trevor Lawrence doubt and over the years we've learned so much about just making sure that we know, and our audience know, that the numbers don't speak for everything. But one thing that does not help and it's a huge deterrent right now is what CJ Stroud and the Houston Texans are doing, and if that's not happening, then I think the conversation is certainly a little bit different. But I mean one, the protection's not there. We're going to talk about the offensive line, I am sure. But two, when we have a comparison right within the division who already beat the brakes off of us earlier in the year and Trev is kind of struggling, that happens.
Speaker 1:What do you say to those people that are concerned? We haven't seen, like you said, really just the offense in general has struggled. But we haven't seen a big time performance from Trev quite yet. And I know everybody wants to see the 300 plus yard for touchdown game from Trevor Lawrence, but in this offense is that even really going to happen because of the reliance on Travis Etn? What are you saying to the portion of the fanbase that is panicking a little bit when it comes to Trevor's performance?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I'll start with Stroud man, he does look like he's the real deal, but also we've had this conversation and not this podcast necessarily, but our projects of the past.
Speaker 2:Like with young quarterbacks, it is easy to jump on board with them quickly in their careers. Right, it starts sipping the Kool-Aid a little too soon, because we see this all the time. Sometimes what it is is just a case of just not a lot of film on a certain individual, just yet. So that's not to downplay what CJ Stroud is doing and not say I'm not a believer in him, because I am obviously. I mean, I said it on Twitter. Of all three of the quarterbacks that were being mentioned for that number one overall pick, he was the one that I would have chosen, which the Panthers would have taken him and alleviated that issue off our hands, but they didn't. But yeah, that being said too, man, like I'm curious of how Stroud looks as more film is developed on him. So, as much as I like him, as much as he looked good against my Georgia Bulldogs, which is a reason that I thought he was the real deal from the jump. Also, don't get too caught up on jumping on the bandwagon too soon. We seen this with quarterbacks and we see this all the time too. Man Like it wouldn't just him and not to compare him and this particular quarterback with Gardner Mingshu. But people were ready to jump on the Gardner Mingshu wagon early in his career when he was here doing what he was doing, and now people could care less about him. I mean, he's doing the best he can with the Coles in a backup role and they actually are at 500 now, so he's making the best of his opportunity. But what I'm saying is a lot of people, although they didn't want to say it, they wanted to jump on that bandwagon of this guy could be our quarterback of the future and look where he is now. So we'll see. Time will tell.
Speaker 2:It also helps that Stroud just has a good structure around him too. I wish Trevor Lawrence had that kind of structure around him in his first year. Has a former coach that was a former player is what I'm trying to say. So that helps in a very good staff as well, a very intelligent front office as well. You know a lot of Patriot guys over there who I know. We've said in the past that Patriots don't really construct good front offices, but I think they might have enough pieces from that Patriots tree that were actually pretty good at their job in terms of their front office. So I think that helps as well and it kind of shows in how they drafted me and feel I mean I know we shouldn't say this, but me and feel, love the draft that they put together.
Speaker 2:So in terms of Trevor, I don't know man, I can't, like we've seen this time and time again with him right In terms of people saying like oh, he's not it, there's that in the other, and then next thing, you know, you know he bounces back, kind of like in the Ravens game that we saw last year, the playoff game against the Chargers as well, which you know I hate to keep bringing that one up, but what I'm saying is like it's just been this pattern of like doubting Trevor and then like he gives a breakout performance to the point where everybody wants to start fighting Chris, chris Broussard, when Chris Broussard mentions his name the wrong way. So I'm not worried about him. I think we should know by now, or we should have learned by now, that Trevor, for the most part, has always answered the call when he's coming off a low, whether that's been Urban Meyer or whatever the case may be, whatever challenges have been presented in front of him. I think it's a little different this year because it's a little harder to do, in a sense that the offensive line isn't helping a lot here. We've seen him get hit quite a lot back there. But that being said, despite that offensive line, we've managed to win six games so far and be ahead of the division. So I'm not worried about him. I think he'll be all right.
Speaker 2:But I do think like we should definitely monitor ahead and forward what they do with this offensive line in terms of getting him the right pieces in place in front of him, because I believe if they do, even with Prest Taylor probably being the offensive coordinator, you have a very good offense on your hands.
Speaker 2:And also, I think a testament of that is just kind of what we saw from Doug Peterson with the Eagles, when Doug Peterson got the line in place that he wanted. That's when they went on to achieve great things and we all know that offensive line that he had back there at that time and still now, actually, the Eagles just have this tradition of great offensive lines, but back then that offensive line was arguably number one and I do believe, as mad as I am for Doug letting him take a loud Prest Taylor to call plays for this offense I do believe that Doug Peterson will be vocal enough and he will do enough in terms of getting with the front office to get our offensive line where it needs to be and as close to that offensive line as possible, because I mean, it's just a staple for his offense and it's just a staple to success. So that's, more so one of those things that'll get cleaned up next year. Time will tell how much better Trevor Lawrence can get behind the current offensive line this year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Jaguars certainly have a after the Tennessee game, which you know. We all know that divisional games can always be strange, but after that they have a quite the run Houston, cincinnati, cleveland and Baltimore and we're certainly going to find out a lot about this team and Trevor Lawrence included in that here very, very soon. Jay, the beauty of you know, podcasting and working in this industry is that, unfortunately, news happens as we are recording. You mentioned actually him earlier in this episode and we'll see if this makes the episode or not. We might clean it up and repost it, but, jay, I don't know if you saw this. Zay Jones has been arrested for domestic battery charge. According to the Jacksonville Sheriff's office, he was booked this afternoon and he is set for a hearing his first hearing court appearance tomorrow morning. That was just reported by John Shippley on Sports Illustrated.
Speaker 2:Yep Phone just vibrated, as you mentioned it, of course, like we got to get the details. I haven't clicked on the article, we haven't had time to read it yet and get the details, but another thing about what we've learned in this game, after many, many years of doing this, is to not jump to conclusions just yet until we know the details. And I'm sure it won't be hard to get the details in this day and age in terms of what happened, this, that and the other. But yeah, man, real concerning when, just what I just said in regards to them really needing him right now. So, yeah, you certainly don't like to see that, but we'll see what comes of that situation and we'll get the details later down the road and probably we'll tweet about that and what have you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's one of those sunburring reminders, right, that we are talking about a game. You know, the lives of these people that we watch every week obviously come first. The only thing I see here that's been added on from the Jaguars, jay, is that we quote we are aware of the situation and are in the midst of gathering information. We will have no further comment at this time, and that is from a Jaguar's spokesperson. So no details yet. There are some details on social media. Of course, as we always like to do, we like to wait for more information to come out, and that is what we will do, but didn't want to bring that up here While we were recording because, again, all this happens in real time as we are discussing the team. But let's move on to some other topics here, jay.
Speaker 1:I will say first you know, I do think they are going to be able to bounce back from this. It is certainly perfectly normal to feel a lot of doom and gloom on Sunday, even parts of today, but we do have Tennessee coming up. And then I actually mentioned this before we started you know, detroit has done a good job at kind of distancing themselves from their big loss to Baltimore, who was my Super Bowl pick, looks even better today, even though they're coming off a loss too Again. That division is just crazy, but Detroit has done a good job at distancing itself from that loss. I think Jacksonville can do the same, and they'll have some pretty big time opponents to do that against here shortly. I know you have something to add, jay. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I feel like the concern shouldn't probably be like if the jab was a bounce back. The concern, more so, should be, you know, do they have the pieces to compete with elite teams? It's always when they run into an elite team that they have issues. Now, albeit when they ran into the Chiefs the most recent time, and even in the playoffs, you know they put up a good fight and, like, had the Chiefs, you know, kind of on their heels. So you know, maybe they're closer to beating the Chiefs than we think.
Speaker 2:But again, yeah, I just think so the question shouldn't be if they'll bounce back. But, okay, if we make the playoffs, how do we, you know, match against not necessarily the bills we have their number but you know Kansas City. And how would we match against, you know, the 49ers if we were to meet them in the Super Bowl? Obviously we wouldn't meet them in the playoffs, but that more so I think that more so falls on Trent Balkie and the team he's made, a team that's, you know, good enough to beat up on the AFC South and do what they got to do within the division, but not good enough to beat the elite teams out there. So that's something worth monitoring and heading forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. They've been very competitive and I know a lot of people have knocked their schedule and who have they beaten? They've beaten some damn good teams. So, again, those are people that just aren't paying attention and are unhappy with the success that this team is seeing. So, but what we're also saying is, or what I was mentioning is, it's okay to be a little worried. Again, jay and I had our concerns about this team and those are coming. Those concerns rise to the top when you're playing a top tier organization like the San Francisco 49ers. Again, they're built to win.
Speaker 1:Right now, it's certainly hurt to see a guy like Chase Young, who the Jaguars looked into bringing him in and it just didn't work out that way. So to see that guy immediately line up against you right after your bye week, that hurt, and you know San Francisco, I think, is going to be just fine and again, that's the reason why I put them in the Super Bowl as far as representing the NFC. So, jay, I mean what happened happened not really a lot of positives to take away. Like you said, it was nice to see Dearness Johnson getting involved and throwing some curveballs in there as far as the offense, but there's not a lot left to talk about, except for, where do we go from here? Again, the defense did everything they could until the dam just finally broke in the second half and, like they didn't, the offense never really got going. I mean, anything else you want to mention about this game before we just kind of discuss what they can do going forward for the remainder of the season?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I want to say one other positive to is again, like you know, when a player doesn't play good, we've knocked them, and when you know they step up to the plate.
Speaker 2:We praise them, you know. So. Another positive, which is kind of hard to find when you get Molly Wopt by the score that we hit Trayvon Walker to, you know that that's a positive heading forward to any kind of a reason to have a little bit more faith in optimism about the defense. Heading forward, kind of like I was mentioning earlier, was he looked like a man amongst boys out there and that was against a very good 49ers team, but he was a standout too. Man played super physical and you know, again, that's what we need in terms of on the other side of Josh Allen. If we can get that, you know, heading forward, you got to like our defense's chances to bounce back at the very least.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we talked about it in length a couple of weeks ago. The defense has played excellent and it's just. You know, what really bothered me about yesterday, jay is like again, I think we all knew that something had to give. You know, the Jaguars were eventually going to lose and the Niners were eventually going to get back on track. It's a bummer that this happened in front of our fans. I think I tweeted that yesterday. It's a bummer that it happened in our stadium with I don't even know 40, maybe even 50% red in the stadium as well.
Speaker 1:I'll say this Niners fans not too bad compared to some of the other fan bases we've had to interact with in the stadium. For the most part they were pretty cool, with the exception of, you know, a couple, and that's always going to happen, no matter the fan base. But it was just a bummer to have that happen in front of our, you know, in front of our fan base. And you know, with the way that national media people have been going at Jacksonville for the last couple of weeks, you know it's unfortunate to give them this kind of ammo. But I will shout out Chris Canty, who was talking about that this morning on his morning show on ESPN, stating he wasn't really worried about the Jags. You know, like I just said, one of these things were going to come to an end and it was just time for the Jaguars to get one of these losses, but he's not worried about the team. It's just nice when national media members are paying attention, so but so it's a bummer for our fans.
Speaker 2:And also a former player. Hearing it from a former player is huge, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're exactly right. So yeah, it's a bummer that it happened here. We know that. What the record is at home If you throw out the London game, not great. But you know we we have a couple of primetime matchups where a lot of eyes will be on us, as well as that Houston game coming up in a couple of weeks too. Jay, anything else you want to mention before we kind of just look ahead to, you know, maybe some other concerns or what else they can do to kind of again tighten this up as we get into the second half of the season and start looking towards the playoffs. The expectation is still that you know they're going to be in. They're going to hopefully, if you know they handle their business, host a playoff game and then who knows what happens after that. Anything else you want to mention as far as this game, before we put it into the past and again focus on the Titans hate week.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, you actually read my mind in terms of yeah, it's nothing really to say in terms of it's time to turn that switch on for Titans. Hate week, man, and get after it with Will Levison and company two man, because, make no mistake about it, the luxury in this loss is you can immediately get over it fast because the Titans are ahead, and you know, or ahead in terms of the schedule, not into the fish, but the Titans are up ahead and you know. When it comes to the Titans, it's easy to shift your focus to them because of just the years and years of animosity we have against them, and I'm down for a shutout this year. So hopefully we'll get a start on it on Sunday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they got two games against Tennessee and you know as a, you know Will Levison obviously got after that fast start but they've kind of come back to earth a little bit. Definitely hurt me in fantasy football as I bought in to that Will Levison hype train, at least for the time being, because my quarterback situation has just been abysmal in fantasy football. But, jay, you know you, earlier in the episode you brought up something you know important, a couple of things. You know one a lot of this is on Trenton bulky and you know we've talked about everybody who likes to mention you know bulky, master class and all that nonsense. But you know you look at this most recent draft and listen. Immediate returns on a draft class are usually slim to none, right. But you know you got to look at the picks. That just rounds two to four in general. Bretton strange, tank Bigsby, ventrell Miller is out for the year. That's. There's nothing you can do about that. Tyler Lacey you know some of these names. Bretton strange, I think, has four catches on the year. Tank Bigsby we've documented his struggles. I don't even know if I've heard Tyler Lacey's name all year. I don't even know if he's on the actor for roster. You'd have to tell me.
Speaker 1:And then the other part about this is Doug Peterson. You know, I think, a shout out to T-Wig. He has been driving this train throughout the day and yesterday. You know a lot of people obviously talking about press Taylor, but Doug Peterson is the guy that's in charge here.
Speaker 1:What is your level of blame that you're laying here on on Doug Peterson? Because, again, just a couple of weeks ago, I think a lot of our fan base would have been adamantly defending that Doug Peterson should have won coach the year last year over Brian Dabel and then should be a strong contender again this year, and not saying that he can't get himself back into that conversation for the remainder of the season. But what level of concern or blame are you laying on Doug Peterson for what happened yesterday? And then, what can we continue to see? As far as the play calling Because you actually were one of the first people to mention this that I've talked to is, don't look solely at press Taylor. We also need to shine a light on Doug Peterson, and what he's doing or what he is not doing, I guess, is what we should say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right that. You know I put the light on him and I'm going to continue to put the light on him. As good of an offensive mind as he is and as part of the reason why I am going to put the light on him is he's too bright of an offensive mind to not intervene and, you know, give his team the best chance possible to win games and again, as I said many, many weeks ago, with him calling the plays, we have the best chance possible to win games. Or, if not him, mike McCoy, somebody who you know, who has a ton of you know, head coaching experience on the NFL level. But yeah, man, like it's so frustrating and upsetting because you know we're coming up in a crucial part of Trevor Lawrence's development. You know he's going to obviously need to get a new contract next year. Possibly, I mean, he could play on his rookie deal. We'll see in time, we'll tell on that. But you would think, after the year that they had and what they saw out of Trevor Lawrence last year, that the mindset would be to come into this year right and give him the best opportunity and the best resources to win, which that's Doug Peterson calling the plays.
Speaker 2:Now I do understand it from the standpoint of what Doug Peterson is doing. He kind of talked about this a week or two ago on maybe the Pat McAfee show or it was one of those podcasts that you know has a renown host or whatever. But he was saying that by putting press and offensive coordinated, that takes a lot off of his plate. So from that standpoint, you know, it's kind of understandable. And I watched a lot of coaching documentaries, right. I can remember Bruce Arians talking about how he just drove himself in the ground as a coach, just taking on all the responsibilities he did, right, and you know, like falling asleep at his desk and waking up and not going home, and it started affecting his health, if I can recall. So from that standpoint, I don't want to be insensitive to what Doug Peterson is doing in terms of alleviating some of the pressure off of him. But again, if not, doug, man, maybe you get somebody in there, like, like I said, with Mike McCoy, who has had coaching experience and you know, you know, try his hand instead of press Taylor. But that being said, man, yeah, you got to feel like a lot of this is falling on Doug, but, as I said earlier, again the Jacksonville Jaguars can get away with press Taylor being their, their offensive coordinator, and I think that's a lot of why Doug hasn't, you know, yanked him or, you know, hasn't demoted him. It's because, when you look at it, it's not just press, though, but you can argue that more so than press Again and we talked about this on week one, remember, feel a week two you could put a lot of blame on execution as well, right, and again, we just talked about how bad the offensive line has been, how many offensive coordinators you know could succeed with that offensive line and at least win six games with that offensive line, and somehow, you know pressing company, you know the whole team collectively have managed the way to win with those circumstances.
Speaker 2:But, that being said, I think that's why Doug is showing so much faith in press Taylor is because you can actually look at things aside from press and say, if we execute better here, right, you know press Taylor can't go out there and make Jamal Agnew run the right concept for a screen. You know he can't go out there and make you know this receiver catch this ball that we dropped. You know that receiver catch that ball that we dropped. You know we have some crucial drops early in the year.
Speaker 2:Calvin really most notably right. That was the Texas game. If you clean some of these things up and you kind of can hear this in Doug Peterson's press conferences if we clean some of these things up, nobody's really mad at press Taylor, or at least not as mad at press Taylor as we are right now, and I think that is why we still continue to see him. You know, have faith in press Taylor is because if you clean up some execution flaws to Jacksonville Jaguars can get away with him as an offensive coordinator. My come. My argument to that, though, is even if you clear up the execution flaws right, he's still nowhere near as good of a play caller as Doug Peterson, and that's where my issue come in with this whole debacle between him and letting press call the place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point. You know, like you said, they're finding ways to win with the roster constructed as is. Offensively and defensively, the defense has excelled, as we have talked about. And listen, we're seeing this in a team we just beat a couple of weeks ago in the Pittsburgh Steelers. That team, at six and three, should not be where it is, but we have always sung the praises of Mike Tomlin, as do a lot of people, and that is what good coaching gets you. So there's concern, certainly, and frustration with Doug Peterson, press Taylor, but we're at six and three.
Speaker 1:I don't see a reason to completely panic or jump ship quite yet. This doesn't ring familiar to 2018, you know, after we're, that season started off very well and then we just completely collapsed for a number of reasons. You know coaching personnel we're in a much better place than we were back then. But you know I just understand why some people feel the way that they do, and that's perfectly fine. You know you can criticize the team within reason, just doing it respectfully, which you know we certainly see a lot of people do. And then obviously, we see the people that just take it a little bit too far, and you know we don't give them the time of day.
Speaker 1:But, jay, is there anything else you want to mention? I mean, this episode was obviously full of quite a bit. We obviously had some breaking news that, like you said, we're going to keep our eyes on and make sure to keep up with us during the week as we learn more about that unfortunate situation. Anything else you want to mention? Any other grievances you want to air out while we wrap up this episode? And you know again, move on to Tennessee where hopefully they can get things going in the right direction again.
Speaker 2:No, man, I'm honestly, as I kind of said on Twitter, I'm honestly, you know, good, not that I'm okay in terms of the loss and it didn't upset me. And again, like me you talked about this beforehand with the losses like I want to see us look good against the upper echelon teams. That's why that Buffalo Bills win was so gratifying to me, Right? So, yeah, I'm just upset as the next man, but at the same time, like I said, it's all about how they responded in that Texas game. You know, they could have just straight up panicked, like us, as the fans took the approach that we took and it could have really went downhill from there, if you're being honest, you know.
Speaker 2:But how they bounced back after that and went on a five game winning streak, I think they could do that here now again. Or at least, you know, go on a two, three game winning streak and then it might get broken up maybe by the you know bingles or the Ravens and then go on another little good run. So, yeah, man, not really concerned about the team, just would have loved for us to make a Super Bowl contender look bad, but unfortunately that one in the cards. Man can't wait to next week. I think we'll be a little bit on a higher note next week, because I mean anytime you beat the Titans, that's fun. So please, jacksonville Jaguars, give us something to be excited about on our next victory episode, as a Titans win would be something that is fan base very, very much so needs right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'll be nice to get back to a victory Monday. I know the atmosphere around here is certainly a lot better, but we will keep you updated on everything you need to know, not only on, of course, ongoing issues as far as Zay Jones, but also get you prepared for the Tennessee Titans over on our social media pages, which you can find right through our link tree link. In the show notes of this episode, you'll find everything that you need, as well as the website and another reminder to download the SeatGeek app and use our promo code touchdownjaguars. Save yourself $20 on your first SeatGeek purchase courtesy of the Touchdown Jaguars podcast. Folks, that is my co-host, james Johnson. I am Phil Smith, and do not forget to tune in to Touchdown Jaguars for every Jaguar touchdown game and we'll see you next week.