Speaker 1:
0:18
Welcome to the Touchdown Jaguars podcast. I am your co-host, james Johnson, and Phil Smith. Hey everyone, welcome back 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. We are recording here on Saturday, october 21st, so a couple of days after the Jaguars successfully traveled out to New Orleans and exercised some voodoo demons for not only the team but also Trevor Lawrence himself, as they came out victorious on Thursday night football 31 to 24. Although you wouldn't know, they played on Thursday night football, given the lack of attention anybody in the national media gave that game the day after, with the exception of a few which we will discuss on this episode in the latter portion of it. Jay, it's good to be here with you and it's good to be covering a five-and-two football team sitting atop the AFC South. Of course, we are recording this before Sunday's, sunday and Monday slate of games, so you know not sure exactly what things will look like. One thing we do know is that the Jacksonville Jaguars will still begin first place, no matter what happens tomorrow and Monday. So good to be back here with you. How are you doing tonight, man? Yeah, I'm excited for and excited to break down this win, but also talk about some things that I know people are always clamoring for. One is Trey Talk, and two is again Trevor Lawrence, just continuing to, for some reason, be a polarizing figure in the national media.
Speaker 2:
2:00
Yeah, man, glad to be back in the booth with you doing it again as a duo, and it is kind of weird that we are recording on a Saturday. We don't do a lot of Saturday recordings, but it'll be a fun one nonetheless, for the simple fact that you know, we won the game, albeit the Saints did give us a little bit of a scare there at the end of the game. And again, I think, like a lot of these games, that the word that I used in terms of these last few games is that we've won them, but we kind of have left a little bit to be desired in terms of how we won them. But nonetheless, though, when you look at it and what the Jaguars have been through these last four weeks traveling to London, having stayed there for two weeks, which actually kind of helped them getting the two wins there, having to come back also as well and have the game against Indianapolis at home, and then after that go on a short week of practice and go to New Orleans a very hostile environment. I always wanted to go to the Superdome. You look at those circumstances, man, we got a lot to be happy about. And again, while it does seem like on the surface, they have left a lot to be desired in terms of these wins. I still couldn't be happier from the standpoint of they have, you know, overcome a lot of obstacles these last four weeks and this is the hardest part of the schedule really, when you look at that, all of the traveling and also the other big thing they talked about Peterson mentioned this in the locker room in his pregame speech, or postgame speech, should I say, where he was saying that, you know, give kudos to the medical staff too, which is, you know, that's a huge part of this as well is the Jacksonville Jaguars have had to do all of that, overcome all of those obstacles, and do it while they haven't been the healthiest right and they haven't had Devon Hamilton, and you know they didn't have Ken Robinson initially, you know, until that second game in London. So, and then you know now, most recently, the Trevor Lawrence thing as well. So when you look at it from that perspective, man, we got a lot to be happy about that this team has come away from this stretch for an old and, as Demetrius kind of pointing out to man, is that we haven't seen the best from this team yet. So there's still a lot of room for them to grow heading forward, and you know they should only get better if they continue to ascend as they have.
Speaker 1:
4:36
And hey, shout out to T-Wig right, a win is a win and you know he got some love on the national media. I don't know if you saw that, jay, on Good Morning Football. They were talking about listening to his podcast. So shout out to T-Wig, who has always been super gracious with his time and advice with us here. As far as the podcasting and the journalism game, we go way back with him. But yeah, jay, you know it's interesting because, like you said, these wins have left something to be desired. For the most part, it's reminiscent. I mean, well, it gives off the energy of a team that is learning to win in various ways and they're all going to be a little bit different, right. So I think we saw, we definitely saw some of that in the Colts game in week one. Then, you know, you get knocked around a little bit by the Chiefs and the Texans and then they reassess, go on that trip and then now they're on this run, right. So you know you said this was definitely a tough stretch of schedule based on, I think, probably the travel you can certainly say, but their biggest tests are yet to come right. San Francisco, cincinnati, cleveland is playing great defensively. Baltimore, the Buccaneers. You know, even though you know we'll see if that's a little bit of Fool's Gold, they're playing relatively well as far as their record goes. Who knows what they'll be come the end of the season or come December when we play them. And we also kind of struggle in Tampa, for whatever reason, even though that's like a four hour drive. I'm not really sure what the deal is whenever we go to Tampa. But they have, as I've mentioned, kind of week after week, an opportunity here to show a lot of people who they are. Now, whether or not people are going to be paying attention, that's a whole other story. So we'll certainly see. But yeah, I mean they're getting those victories and you know what, in January you're going to have to win some ugly football games at times, and you know what. That's kind of what they're doing here. So we're going to very briefly break down what we saw on Thursday night and then move on to, you know, kind of looking ahead as far as what we'd like to see happen for any changes. Because the Jaguars are an interesting position. You know I tweeted this out on Wednesday night after the win over the. Up until between now and November I believe November 11th they've got one game and they have an opportunity to get healthy, maybe get some, make some moves, you know, as we'll talk about here a little bit later in this episode. So they have a, I think, as far as just planning out the schedule the way they did, because we all know, or at least what we understand, is that teams have the option to take their buy after their London trip and they didn't do that. So now they find themselves in a unique position, you know, with the mini buy by playing on Thursday night and then the buy we got for the Pittsburgh game to get healthier than a lot of teams have the opportunity to do so this late in the season. So I'm excited to see what kind of, or how long this win streak could continue. I mean, who knows, maybe it ends in Pittsburgh. That has yet to be seen. Obviously, those matchups are always strange when it comes to the Steelers. So I'm really excited to get into this episode. Before we begin, want to welcome in any brand new listeners. Thank you so much for checking us out. So for all your returning listeners, thank you for the continued support. Every link that you will need for this podcast is found in the link tree link of the show notes of this episode. That includes links to the website, all of our social media pages, as well as a link to download the SeekGeek app. Use our promo code touchdownjagwar save yourself $20 on your first purchase with SeekGeek. As always, shout out to them for continuing to sponsor touchdown jagwar Now. But, jay, let's go ahead and jump into this game. As I mentioned, the Jacksonville Jaguars successfully defeated the New Orleans Saints 31 to 24 on Thursday Night Football. For a little bit, as we have seen, and actually most of the games they played this season it seemed as if they were maybe going to start running away with things, but they gradually let a very frustrated tarot car and the New Orleans Saints back into the game. They got off to a quick start and I can't remember who pointed this out. That might have been, again, troll Will, who we frequently shout out on this podcast. You know the Jaguars have gone from a team that started slow and finishing fast to starting fast and finishing slow, which we again. We're continuing to look for that balance that I think you alluded to in the beginning of the episode, Jay. So start wherever you'd like. I know they were definitely portions of this game where they looked really, really solid. But we are still seeing some lingering concerns that are now kind of becoming weak to weak, concerns that I'm sure we would like to see cleaned up here relatively soon. So what are some of your takeaways, wherever you would like to start, when it comes to Thursday night football?
Speaker 2:
9:38
Yeah, I mean I guess we can start where you kind of mentioned is. You know now we have fast starts. The last two games, if my knowledge is correct, the Jacksonville Jaguars have started their offensive drives off with touchdowns and their you know, their beginning drive, their initial drive on offense, and both of which have come from Travis ET and, by the way, who's been on absolute fire? I talked about that in the last podcast, I don't need to continue on on that, but he's been on fire man lately and you know we said we weren't going to talk about this in the episode so we won't. But one thing I just kind of wanted to mention with Travis ET and it's now that he's kind of taken off and he's been the biggest source of touchdowns for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He's helping us make that Jaylin Ramsey trailing look not as bad, but that's another topic for another time. Is still don't look great, but you know it's a little easier to deal with when you got a running back. That's been. You know, at least the last two weeks has been the best running back in football, or close to it. As I said on the BS and beer media podcast. Shout outs to them, by the way as well. Thanks for having me on once again. But yeah, that's where we can start is, you know, on the Jacksonville Jaguars starting fast? But now, as opposed to how they were doing earlier in the year, starting slow and kind of speeding it up in the second quarter, it's a little different. They started fast and have slowed down, a lot of which I feel like could be play calling and press Taylor. Now, what I will say, feel about this win that I liked is they started off fast. They hit a low, you know, and then you know, late in the game, when it counted the most and when their backs were against the wall, and when you know there was some adversity and you're in a loud stadium, by the way, a very hostile crowd they dug deep, they went into the playbook and found a play that essentially was a man beater play, which we've heard this many, many times. Christian Kirk is just like unstoppable against man coverage. That's exactly what they got in that play and he hit a double move route got open on Tyron Matthew and they basically that played. To me signify that they know how to close games despite, you know, hitting a little bit of a low point. You know, in quarters two and maybe three, they were able to pick themselves up, make the make the play when it counted the most and, you know, be able to score late. That's another thing. Like this team is going to have to learn how to score late In terms of offensively and stop having the defense bail them out. So we got a little glimpse of that. We got a little bit of a glimpse of that, so hopefully that's something that'll trickle into. You know, the games heading forward. But yeah, I do like that aspect of the game is that we saw that late surge from the offense to get the Jaguars over the top, which is something we kind of haven't seen out at offense heading forward. We kind of have had to maybe rely more so on the defense to help us close games. But nonetheless, man, I'll take that win and glad to see Christian Kirk getting his props and getting more receptions and getting his doing the game in which Calvin Ridley kind of was kind of limited to limited yards.
Speaker 1:
13:09
So that was good to see, yeah, you know, and even when the national media was talking about the Jaguars, when they so graciously gave us some of their time, they did talk about Christian Kirkus. But I believe it's specifically Ryan Clark who pointed out that you know he expected Christian Kirk to have a big day. And you know, talk about a guy who we were worried. You know, I kind of mentioned this after week one. I kind of worried about maybe getting lost in this offense because of Calvin Ridley. And man, that has just not been the case whatsoever. And listen, calvin, you know he's been away from football for two seasons, right, so you know he's not going to come right in, although he did kind of set the league on on fire after week one, but it's not going to be. You know, we're just not going to see that every single week, especially when teams like the Saints are going to key in on him. And you know, I will say this, even though and rightfully so Al Michaels is getting just absolutely torn to shreds, not only by Jaguar fans, but just kind of Twitter in general, because of his. I don't know what it is, he's just not interested in the game anymore or he just really hates the Jaguars. But I will say the Amazon the analytics fancast is fantastic, you know, more networks need to adopt that. I really, really enjoyed that. But yeah, it was nice to see. It's just been great to see Christian Kirk continue to be a an elite target for Trevor Lawrence and listen, people are now seeing. You know, remember at the time everyone was who was freaking out over the money that he got. Turns out he might be a little bit underpaid. So Christian Kirk, definitely shout out to him. I do want to talk about that play calling there, jay, because it was a huge point of conversation for us via text. You know how long, how much longer can Doug really let press Taylor get away with this, because again, we're going to have a lengthy period of time. So they where they will have the opportunity to to reanalyze what they're doing for the second half of the season and some of the things that he was that he found himself call some of the play calling that we saw in those quarters the second and third quarter, and then again, that being a, I think, a major reason that the team was able to come back. I mean, what was that one drive by the Saints, jay, right, it was, uh, what's like a 16 play drive and then they go three and out, or maybe they get one for us down and then the Jaguars are right back, but the defense is right back out in the field. How much longer can this continue? Because the the other thing I think you pointed out is the fact that we haven't really heard Doug necessarily address it. Correct me, if I'm wrong. You said something along those lines. So how much longer can this go on? Because something has got to change.
Speaker 2:
15:52
Yeah. Well, what I was saying is like I would just like to see Doug intervene, you know, with with the situation when, um, you know, they, they hit these low marks in the game or whatever the case may be, because at the end of the day, it's kind of like T-Wigs said at the end of the day, yeah, you know, press sailors, the offensive coordinator, but people forget, like we're pointing finger at press, all we want, but Doug wears the headset too, so he gets the calls too and he, you know if, if he wanted to, he can step in and say like no, we're not going to do that, it's probably not going to work, or, you know, this is what I would do. So that's the interest and dynamic of it. Is like we've been super hard on press Taylor when Doug can be the one that helps him through this or put a stop into some of these plays, uh, that we've seen and we're just scratching our heads about now what I will say in terms of your, your initial question of how long can they go and do this, I mean with the defense continuing to bail them out, and what I mentioned earlier as well, the offense showing some life late in the game, this particular game. That probably doesn't help the case of press Taylor being demoted anytime soon, if that's what you kind of alluded to. Um, I think what it will take is, maybe, if it ever happens, or, you know, if Doug needs to get more involved. I think what it'll take is, you know, these two big games that you kind of mentioned earlier, you know, against the 49ers or, um, the bingles, and these big games where that shows up or surfaces as an issue and hopefully this is not the case but potentially cost the Jags a big game against. You know, one of these teams that are high up in the power rank is alongside the Jacksonville Jags was heck, who knows, maybe one of these other teams that is remaining on the schedule. You know, maybe it could take a point in one of those games, uh, where it's like okay, like we can't do that against the 49ers or the bingles or so on and so forth. But I think it would take probably, you know, for them to see it, if they're going to do anything about it, for them to see this be a problem in the big games, in the game against the bingles again, and the 49ers. And the reason I say that is because we already kind of, you know, have marked off that Kansas City Chiefs game um earlier in the year, which you know we could see them in the postseason again, but that's one of the big games that we had to check off, so that one's behind us. Um, you kind of have to look forward at your schedule. If this makes sense, send and look at those games against teams that you were either seeing the Super Bowl, the 49ers or teams that you're seeing a playoffs, the bingles, and maybe like the Ravens and you need to take great evaluations in those games, in my opinion, because they are teams that you might see in the postseason and those are the evaluations that will make you better, um, when you get into postseason, if that makes sense. So, that being said, man, one thing I also wanted to add here, um, by the way, is to like, something also to consider here is and this could help the Jaguars going forward offensively is, you know, trevor was probably like super limited in practice as well, so that might give for a sailor a little bit more of a runway as well. Um, you know, the more he's able to like take reps fully throughout the week, you know, the better this offense can be, and maybe we could see a offense that puts together a full, you know, four quarters at and forward. But time will tell. And it is an interesting situation nonetheless because press Taylor could be one of the best, one of the things aside from, you know, the other stuff that we mentioned the past rush, the offensive line, press Taylor probably third or maybe second on that list of things that could stop the Jaguars from either making a playoffs, which I don't think that'll be the case, or making noise in the playoffs, or winning the Super Bowl. So we'll see in time.
Speaker 1:
19:57
On tail, yeah we certainly don't want that to be the case, especially with Doug Peterson standing right there. Like you said, he has the opportunity to intervene, he has the opportunity to step in and, for whatever reason, you know, he's just kind of let press figure this out. I mean, again, it's very akin to what happened with Mike Caldwell. Now listen, obviously Doug Peterson is an offensive guy. You know, with Mike Caldwell we have kind of let this thing play out. The problem is, this year is when you have deep playoff run aspirations as opposed to last year and Mike Caldwell, even though we were very critical of him last season, the defense bailed them out on quite a few big plays consistently, especially down the stretch. That's happening again this year. So it's a little bit different now, obviously, with Doug Peterson calling the plays Last year we've seen it, we've seen it work, we've seen it be successful and now, for whatever reason, we're not seeing him again intervene, like you mentioned, when it comes to what what Press Taylor is doing. But I do want to move on to some other positives here. Jay, you know, obviously we've to kind of transition, as we just talked about the defense, you know, no Tyson Campbell in this game going up against a couple of solid receivers and Mike Thomas, chris Olave. Derek Carr you can kind of say what you want about him, but he has been a serviceable quarterback in the league. He is a guy that I can't remember. If you how you felt about him, jay, in that draft, but I definitely preferred Derek Carr over Blake Bortles. But you know, against a, an offense that has the weapons to put up points, I mean. That being said, I mean New Orleans has just been, has struggled mightily on offense this season. I remember that that one Saints fan that had the Google search sign for offense for the Saints it was. That was pretty fun, that was a. That was a good sign but really, really impressive. As far as as defense goes, especially with the secondary, you know one up one to shout out Monterre Brown. Obviously he gave up the touchdown earlier in the game but then came back later and obviously had the game ceiling pass break up but also just played really well in the game overall. I mean obviously people are going to point out the touchdown, but after that played very, very well in a tough position. You know to go out there and play opposite of Darius Williams in that environment. You know the Superdome famously difficult to play in and you know just as far as the defense goes, they they look pretty solid foyer. We saw him rumble to a pick six, so that was great to see as the Jaguars continue to force turnovers. So, defensively, Jay, what did you like? What do you see as far as room for improvement? Thoughts overall on the defensive performance for the Jaguars.
Speaker 2:
22:47
Yeah, before I get on the defense, to answer your question about car coming out of the draft. I can't remember how it felt about car but I do notorious notoriously remember me being super high on the Vonte Adams, who also came from Fresno State. I think Derek Carr came from Fresno State too, but yeah, it was real.
Speaker 1:
23:07
Yeah, I wanted to pair them together. If I remember correctly, yep.
Speaker 2:
23:11
Same class. You're right. I can remember how I felt about Adams. Can't quite remember how I felt about car. I probably can dig up some old articles and embarrass myself. But in terms of the defense I pull out the PFF grades. I tweeted them early here. Pretty good overall. They way better than the grades that the offense had. By the way. But for you a little connection you said led the way with the eighty nine point nine. This is the second week he's led the defense. By the way, he had like a over a 90 last week. So he's like by PFS metrics. For those who believe in that, of course he's on fire these last two weeks. And I guess you could say the same about Devin Lloyd too, who hasn't looked bad either. But behind a Louis it was Josh Allen, of course, with eighty seven point seven. He is notorious for great and well by their metrics, devin Lloyd, who I just mentioned, by the way. Eighty two point four, so not bad that all there. Dewey Wingard, who probably had like a little bit under thirty snaps Maybe I have to go back and look at that, but nonetheless he had a seventy nine point three came in for Cisco, obviously when Cisco was cramping up. And Adam Gott says with a seventy seven point five. So those were the top five grades in terms of PFF and then, yeah, in terms of the defense's performance overall. Again, just like I just really like going back to what I was saying earlier, just what we're getting, at least these last two weeks, out of the linebackers and that linebacker play between you know, obviously Allen, but most notably Devon Lloyd, is starting to look closer to what we thought we were getting in the first round last year when we traded up to get him. And I like that because last year, you know, it just wouldn't click in for him and he looked lost. Now, granted, in the Colts game he dropped a few picks, but again it's. You know, the guy got a cast on his hand and I kind of got to actually see it on the video, the post game video, where they just talked to the players as they're coming off the field and, like you know, he has like big time wrap on that hand. So you know that's not the easiest thing to catch the ball. So we can give him a little bell there. But you know, he showed up again in this game against the Saints and Kurt Herb Street praised him. Shout out to Kurt, who we've been in a few press conferences with, where he has PN, he seems real cool. So, yeah, man, I just like where the linebackers are right now, man, and they're flying all over the place, playing well vertically, playing well laterally. They're sidelined, sidelined, killing it, which I guess that would be laterally, but they have really impressed me. I'm excited to watch those two as a pair heading forward. As you said, monterrey Brown or Monterrey Buster Brown, a guy that you know he gave up some plays, but he talked about this to Bucky and maybe it might have been Mia also too that he has the right mindset from a standpoint of you're going to give up some big plays, but you can't play the cornerback position if you don't have amnesia, because it's just going to happen. Me, you talk about that all the time. We've seen Tyson Cam will give up a freaking touchdown on Stefan Diggs it's just it happens right. And for him to have the mental ability, as he's only been in the lead two years, by the way, and we're talking about a kid who was a what? Six, seven round pick, albeit, you know, he did come from Arkansas, so came from a notorious conference, the SEC, and was one time at one point in time, if I can recall all SEC player, but still, this is the NFL man and lining up against Mike Thomas and Chris O'Lavey as much as he did, you know isn't an easy thing and you know for him to put in the preparation and be ready for that last play. I know he wish he would have snagged it as a pick, but he was still there at the right place at the right time. It shows, you know, that got a player that we can build something on Now. Do you want him starting, as I said in? You know the tweets I put out in our text, or it probably not. You know you want him starting too many games, but again, he's a six round pick and a very young player. These games are going to be very valuable for him and he is a guy that I want to watch heading forward in terms of sticking to this roster and being more so. Maybe, you know fourth or fifth corner We'll see if he has to take more reps out there because we don't know what Tyson status will be. But yeah, just really, really happy to see him step up when it counted the most. By all means wasn't a perfect game, but shows that or showed that he's developing and he showed that this staff is. You know, he's kind of proven what we said about the staff and that they are good at developing and being patient with players, which is what you kind of like to see for the growth of the team heading forward.
Speaker 1:
28:19
Yeah, how long before Devon Lloyd gets one of those right? I feel like it's only a matter of time. You know he's got to be frustrated because he could have, I think, what he's got three dropped interceptions this season, so only a matter of time. You saw Josh Allen out there getting to the quarterback. I don't think he ever got home, if I remember correctly, or did he have that forced fumble? I believe he had the one forced fumble off the double check, the box score for that. So, Jay, correct me if I am wrong, but yeah, I mean the defense continues to look solid. You definitely don't want to see them, you know, see a lead like that disappear. But again, like I said, that's 16 play drive and then the offense not doing them any favors in the middle portion of this game certainly didn't. They didn't get exactly all the help you would like them to see, but nonetheless they did enough to keep the Saints and Derrick Carr from rallying all the way back and forcing overtime, but again, continuing to look solid on that end. Jay, is there anything else you want to mention as far as a game? I know you have a couple of other things you want to add here before we move into our next topics.
Speaker 2:
29:33
Yeah, I mean, how about Logan Cook showing off that elite arm and elite arm, that was good enough. That was good enough right, that was good enough. He actually showed up on the PFF top grades only, although he only had one throw. He had like a 70.3 or something, so he would have been like the third or second best graded offensive player in the game. But yeah, I just wanted to throw that out there. He actually shared a cool story about that play after the game in the postseason in the post game interview Maybe it was with Mia or somebody, but it was just basically a matter of New Orleans gave them the look they wanted and him and Tim Jones were kind of on the same page of like OK, this is the look, let's not make this look too obvious. Tim Jones ran like I think it was a little hitch route. Logan Cook hit him right on the money. If I'm remembering it correctly. I don't think we scored on that drive, so we kind of wasted the opportunity, but it was good nonetheless to see Logan Cook out there proving to be the elite punter that he is a guy, by the way, that feel bumped into coming out of the tunnel One of the coolest experience we've ever had with a player. But yeah, man just wanted to shout out Logan Cook.
Speaker 1:
30:50
Yeah, I saw that so pretty cool. You know they're able to adjust that on the fly. Just solid football IQ from a premier position on the field. I'm sure Pat McAfee would agree to that. But anything else you want to mention before we move into maybe some trade targets? I know this is the time of the year Everybody loves to talk about that. So anything else before we move on.
Speaker 2:
31:11
No, I'm good man. I think we covered it all.
Speaker 1:
31:14
Sounds good. Well, the Jaguars are five and two as they head to Pittsburgh next week, on the 29th, so a couple of days before Halloween. We'll see if they can make it a spooky trip for the Pittsburgh Steelers. But, jay, let's get into something again, as I just teased, a lot of people love to talk about around this time of year, and that is the trade deadline. Now, the NFL is a lot different from the other sport that we really love, jay, which of course, is the NBA. You know, you see a lot of big time guys move, sometimes like right in the middle of the season, and it shakes up the entirety of the league. That doesn't really happen too often in the NFL, at least in season. You know, we obviously see big trades happen in the off season Most recently, obviously, the one that comes to mind is the Aaron Rodgers trade. But you know, there could be some moves that the Jaguars could make and some players they could target that could really really make a difference and solidify their arrival as a team that can make a deep playoff run this season. Now, some of them are going to be, I think, a little bit more realistic than others, but we wanted to look at some names and see what maybe the possibility is of them actually being able to acquire these players. Now we have to start with the one that has it's probably the loudest right, and that's Daniel Hunter. We were tied to him in the off season before the season started, and then you know that obviously never amounted to anything. But now the Vikings now find themselves in a pretty bad spot record-wise. Kirk Cousins has also been a guy that has been thrown out there as far as trade rumors for teams like the Jets, so on and so forth. But let's start there, jay, you know you brought up an interesting quote from an anonymous, I believe, gm in the league as far as what the compensation would have to be to acquire him. So what is that? What did you see and do you think you know what? Do you think the possibility would be that Trent Balkie and the Jags would pull the trigger on such a deal?
Speaker 2:
33:15
Yeah, it was in an article from Jeremy Fowler on ESPN one of their insiders and so, yeah, the anonymous GM was saying that he gets to say it would take a quote unquote sizable deal. According to now, the quote unquote part is from Fowler himself, not the GM A sizable deal, deprive him from, deprive Daniel Hunter from the Vikings. So that's worth mentioning because, you know, as we've said in this podcast, we don't really see Trent Balkie as a person that would give up a first rounder or anything like that for a player. That's just not in his nature. So if that's the case, you can pretty much rule the Jaguars, unfortunately, out of a Daniel Hunter trade. He went on to say that he and he by he I mean Jeremy Fowler spoke with anonymous executive who said he's not in position to give up a first rounder for Hunter, suggesting that it might take a first rounder. So that probably would put a damper on our hopes to get the Neil Hunter. I mean, there are other options out there, but those other options we were mentioning would also take a first round pick. That being said, it sounds like the Vikings want to keep Hunter around, which, the more I think about it is, it's still that they still could be swayed and the reason being is look they're. While this article does mention that. You know the Vikings have a chance to come out and we're in their division In my eyes, I mean without Justin Jefferson, who went on IR, with Kirk Cousins as your quarterback, I mean, even with Jefferson and Cousins, they kind of been just stuck in the area where they can go to the playoffs and not advance and you have to ask yourself is Cousins the answer Right? That being said, they should be in you know, the at mode to just restart in terms of not necessarily give up. You know, lose Jefferson, but I'm start acquiring draft picks and trying to build that franchise up the right way, because I don't see them coming out of this situation and going to the playoffs. Personally, that's just me Now. I know we did it last year. We kind of had a similar start to them. We did it, but again, our division isn't that great. So there's that. But I think you know if you're bulky, what I will say is you continue to keep tabs on that and continue to just call, you know, day after day, and see what the deal is there and see if you can get Hunter now, look you probably. If you can't talk them down off that first round pick, then it's a lost cause. You probably can't get them. But, as me and you were talking about right field before the podcast, if you're, trent bulky, giving up a first round pick at the end of the world because Trent bulky isn't exactly great at making first round selections Now of course he got Anton this year, who's looking good, devon Lloyd last year, I think. Alden Smith we can't really count Trevor Lawrence, because when you got the first overall pick in a class where you got a generational prospect like him, it's a no brainer. So you can't really count that one. But he hasn't been great, aside from those picks, in terms of using the first round or utilizing his first round picks. The only issue is he kind of would have a good point to not give up a first round pick from this standpoint, and that is you know you're only getting to kneel for, you know, a half a year or whatever it is. You know you're not getting them for a full year. So you have to, you know, come up with a long term deal, which I would hope. If you're getting to kneel, hunter, you're going to like work out a long term deal along the way in negotiations as well and make him part of the team long term. But that being said, if you can't keep the kneel Hunter past October, on the end of October on, then giving up a first round pick for him would, you know, kind of be questionable. So it's a tricky situation. I still think that you know, the more and more the Vikings sit on it and think about it, they could consider trading him. Time will tell, maybe that's just wishful thinking, but if they do, it definitely looks like the Jacksonville Jaguars wouldn't be able to acquire him if the price is a first round pick.
Speaker 1:
37:48
Would you, if you had that kind of power, if it were up to you, would you give the Vikings a first round pick for Hunter? Or, if you're going to give up a first, are you looking to get a guy that maybe like a Chase Young or a Brian Burns, or do you put? Do you grouped Neil Hunter in with that group of past rushers? Where do you value him and would you give up that first round pick for him?
Speaker 2:
38:12
So if you do it, I think you probably would prefer, if you're going to give up a first round pick, you probably want to do it and get somebody like Chase Young or Burns, because they're younger Not saying Hunter is older or old should I say, but he is 28, while those guys are more along the lines of 25, 26. So there's that, if you want to do it. So if it does take a first round pick, you probably want to just switch gears and start calling Washington and calling the Carolina Panthers as well. If you're going to give up that kind of compensation, might as well get a young player. Now, in terms of when it comes to those two, yeah, I probably would do it. The only thing is it causes an issue of what do you do with Josh Allen? Can you keep that past rushing because you're going to have to give him a long term deal, or else you're giving up your first round pick in vain. You come up with a deal with Josh Allen as well and get that player that you get a long term deal. That's a hard call to make, but I've always said and you all know how I operate, just based off of the thread and years of knowing me scared. Money don't make no money, so I would bring in one of those young pass rushers with a long term deal, of course, attached to it or in mind, or whatever the case may be. If you have the franchise tag Josh Allen and I'm not sure I'm saying this not knowing what the salary cap is going to look like next year, but it goes up every year, so that helps your case If you have the franchise tag Josh Allen, so be it. I know that it would be spending a lot of resources into the edge versus positioning. I know they have to pay Trevor Lawrence, but use your actions now and figure it out later, because that window is going to close eventually. It's not like Bucky has a lot of time, because we're coming up on a time where Trevor Lawrence we say this all the time he is going to have to get his deal done sooner or later. It is hard to do and it's hard to remain a postseason team when you're paying your quarterback that much money. You have to rely more so on the draft, which, again, trent Bucky is not great at drafting, so he should have his mind more so fixed on probably getting a veteran pass rusher in to help this team now because in the future, when he has to pay Trevor Lawrence, I personally don't like his chances of putting the right drafts together with Trevor Lawrence making the salary that he will be making to keep the jazz relevant. So I say, do it now and worry about the repercussions later. But yeah, I would give up a first round pick If Ford probably chase Young and Brian Burns more so than for the Neil Hunter.
Speaker 1:
41:08
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, obviously pass rusher is going to be what people focus on the most. That is certainly the greatest position of need as far as just getting somebody on the opposite side of Josh Allen maybe move Trayvon Walker to his more natural fit elsewhere on the defense. So what are some players or who are some other players that maybe you like to highlight, that either aren't on the defensive line, or even other pass rushers that maybe would be, you know, would cost a little bit less? Obviously, there you know the Frank Clark of it all over with the Broncos that has pretty much come and gone. I believe he was released and then plans on resigning. Not Frank Clark? Yeah, frank Clark. I believe he is either already resigned with the Chiefs or is about to, I don't remember, but so that is kind of coming gone. I believe the who was it that reacquired. Who was the other pass rusher? Oh, randy Gregory, also from the Broncos. He was sent off to the 49ers. So those are two names that are off the board. Who are some other names that you have kind of circled as maybe guys we should have keep a lookout for, whether they be defensive line or any other position.
Speaker 2:
42:21
With the when it comes to any other. So the only other thing that comes to mind in terms of the Jacksonville Jaguars is trying to fix the offensive line. But that's kind of one of those things you can't do, like in the end of October, like you can't just insert, you know, a guard in there and you know, while I was fixed, you know you would prefer to have your line, with some kind of camaraderie heading into some kind of camaraderie, coming out of October. So I mean, yeah, often offensive line is one of their bigger needs, but that's probably something they would more so need to address in October. And I mean, of course we'll probably get Walker little back sooner rather than later, so offensive line wouldn't be as big of a need in you know, a week or two or so or whatever the case may be. So it's just a matter of maybe waiting for him to come back and then addressing it in the off season. But yeah, I haven't really. For me, my main focus has been on fixing that pass rush, because if they do that, as we said earlier in the year in the preseason podcast, if they fix the pass rush, granted, you know, they still got some things to work out on offense between the offensive line and Press Taylor's play calling. They still have a pretty good chance of, you know, either going to the Super Bowl or the AFC championship. So really it should be pass rushing, nothing else. Now look, if they, you know, add a player to here outside of the pass rush, we'll have to see who it would be and you know we can make a call from there. But I think the sole focus is just looking at the market and the names that's being thrown out. There should be solely on fixing things on the edge.
Speaker 1:
44:09
Yeah, like I said, it's just so difficult to integrate. You know the offensive line chemistry, this, you know is it so late into the season and you know they got to get in line with not only the other players in the line but also Trev and you know it's just a whole thing. So yeah, like I said, something you want to see them address in the off season feels really strange for them to be in a spot where they don't need a wide receiver. We don't have people clamoring for Devonte Adams or Jerry Judy or whoever it may be. It is a strange time for Jacksonville Jaguar fans. But yeah, we definitely are circling pass rusher. We would like to see a Trent Bulk. He'd do something a little bit out of his comfort zone. You know, obviously, the trade for Calvin Ridley, under an extreme set of circumstances for him to make that move. So that will not be the case this time around if he wants to go ahead and bring in another Calvin Ridley caliber type player. So we will continue to monitor that. But, Jay, to wrap up this episode, we kind of want to talk about Trevor Lawrence just continuing to be kind of a strange lightning rod, for I don't even know if it's hate or what it is, whatever it is you want to call it, the latest example being Chris Broussard. I believe it was yesterday on whatever the version of the Fox Sports Station. Is that the Fox Sports version of Get Up? Whatever that show is called? I don't watch anything on on FSN. I'll be honest with you. I do keep up with whatever Nick Wright has said about the Prince for the day, but that is about it. I mean, listen, Chris Broussard is good. He's a job, very knowledgeable about basketball, but he's not going to be the first guy I go to when I want to hear anything football related, but the guy obviously has a job for a reason. He is good at what he does. I'm never going to say anything about that, but you can always tell and I tweeted this earlier today. We always point out the Twitter GMs that only stat check. They look at the stats and say Trevor's not playing very well. Why did he only have 204 yards and one passing touchdown? They don't know that. He's pitching the ball to Travis Etienne and he's making big place happen. They're not seeing the pre-snap reads or the deep throws he's making to Calvin Ridley. They're not seeing any of that. I myself, I have been guilty of just looking at the stats and thinking that it builds a narrative, but it doesn't. I just don't have time to watch every single NFL game, which a lot of people don't. What do you think it is? As far as Trevor Lawrence, as he continues to get this kind of vitriol from national media, from other fan bases? Is it a jealousy thing? Is it a people just love to hate on the quote, unquote, next big thing kind of thing? Or is it a Jacksonville thing? Let's be honest, it doesn't help the NFL really for a city like Jacksonville to prosper. It helps a city like Green Bay because they've been around forever. It helps teams like that Little old Jacksonville, Northeast Florida, not a major market. Doesn't help them, doesn't push their ratings, Is it just that?
Speaker 2:
47:25
Well, I think what it is in the case of, like Bruce Sard, it's just simply what I talked about before One or two podcasts ago. Is that just not enough exposure to Jacksonville, right? They don't get a lot of prime time games. They'll get three this year. So after this year, I would say people especially they don't have an excuse now in the national media to say some of the stuff they're saying, but they especially won't have an excuse next year. Trevor Lawrence, you know, shows up in these prime time games and adds another year to what he did last year. But I think that's what it is. It's like a lot of people don't get a lot of national exposure to the Jacksonville Jaguars, which isn't an excuse, because I mean, you look at FSN or you know whatever network but, particularly FSN or FS.1, should I say, excuse me, when you look at that, like if you're going to go on TV, right, and I respect the heck out of Bruce Sard and what he's done in terms of, you know, being a basketball insider and being a journalist in general, but if you're going to speak on a topic, right, at least use the tools to your disclosure that you have, I know, fs.1, at least they should have. Or Fox should have a beatwriter or a reporter or analysts of some sort for each year, if I'm not because I applied for a job At the time, I applied for one of these jobs, not that I'm thinking about it, but they have a divisional analyst for each division, not necessarily for each team, but each division one for the AFC South, one for the NFC North, so on and so forth. Right, look, if you're, y'all are going to talk about this on TV, reach out to them and get a little bit of insight from them Before you go on TV and talk about these things. I mean, obviously Nick Wright is very prepared for these topics. Why isn't everybody else at the table just as prepared? And you know, we kind of see that with these national media shows is, you know, one person is, you know, more prepared than the others to speak on a topic, and I'm not saying they all should be equally prepared, but one thing about when you do something on a national level is you definitely should put some preparation and time into it beforehand Before you go on TV and say these things. Me and Phil do it all the time we prep not necessarily. We've been doing this so many years now but we don't do it a long time. But when we first got together, we put a lot of preparation into our podcast before we got on the air and, you know, said or did what we're going to do. Now it's kind of a little bit more natural. We spend like 10 minutes or even less sometimes prepared before we come on air. But you know you have the resources. You don't need not even necessarily having to watch the full game or watch a full season of Trevor Lawrence, but you have the resources. There again, reach out to the analysts that cover this or whatever the case may be, or even bring the analysts on. You know we got the technology to bring these people on. If they want, bring the analysts on that covers this stuff and have them more social speak on this than somebody who's not. But that's why we're hearing the takes. That we hear is because I think the Jacksonville Jaguars don't get a lot of national exposure and with that a lot of people haven't even seen so much as a game for the Jacksonville Jaguars. And then they go to there, they say what they say, as I said last week also, by the way, we have NFL Plus at a super cheap rate coming at us what I think? $15 for NFL Plus. Don't even check out a whole game, but a half a game, something like that, before you speak on Trevor Lawrence. But I think until people see them more so on the national spotlight we'll continue to hear these takes and even after that I wouldn't doubt that we'll still continue to hear these off takes when it comes to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Speaker 1:
51:35
You know I'm used to it by now. But like I don't even know that, and granted, I don't watch Get Up in its entirety, like in the morning, I'm at work like a lot of other people, so I'm not going to. I mean, even though I work from home, I'm not going to turn on ESPN and watch Get Up from beginning to end, but I do watch the clips that they upload to YouTube, like on my lunch or something along those lines, and I don't. They didn't even mention the Jaguars on Get Up. I'm sure they probably maybe spoke about it in the first hour or so, but after that, you know it was right back on to the Cowboys and the Jets and whatever's going on there. And then listen, I get it. We understand how the media works. We understand what moves, numbers, what fan bases are the most popular. I totally get that. But you know again, like you said, because Jacksonville is not going to get that type of coverage, we're going to continue to hear these types of things from national media. Again, chris Broussard, like you said, jay, you can't tell me that FSN doesn't have, just like a dedicated NFL plus account for all their employees to use, right? Or that somebody can't get him one if he wants to be cheap and not sign up for it himself. I can probably guarantee you that Chris Broussard didn't even watch a quarter of Jaguar Saints for either for either team, you know, probably didn't care about the Saints side either, you know, especially with the NBA season coming up, and you know that, being of course his wheelhouse, you would think that he would pay attention a little bit more because of Nick Wright. Right, because Nick Wright has been the leading voice on FSN for Trevor Lawrence and for the Jaguars and a guy who seems to be paying attention Another guy, at least as far as I know I've seen, with more basketball knowledge than football knowledge. I don't know Nick Wright's entire journalistic history. I know he has done a little bit of everything, but I certainly have seen him more along the lines of being talking about the NBA. So it seems like when you have a co-worker like that and that's one of his main gimmicks is that, you know, supporting Trevor Lawrence you think he would pay a little bit more attention. But he's clearly not Go ahead, jay.
Speaker 2:
53:50
Yeah, you make a good point when you know it's coming. You know that Nick Wright is going to bring this up every week, at least once a week. You know why not at that point? Because Nick Wright has been on this train for a long time. Why not just, you know, watch a little bit more Jay Again, like not saying you got to watch a whole game of theirs, but a quarter or two Again. You know, kind of reach out to the analysts that cover the AFC South and what have you. And in regards to the ESPN thing where you said on Get Up, where they didn't speak about the Jacksonville Jazz Wars, I'd rather them not speak about it than go on air and not be prepared to speak about the Jazz situation and say something like you know what Bruce Sardes said. Well, again, respect what he's done in journalism and what have you, high basketball IQ and what have you. But you can't go out there and say like Trevor Lawrence has disappointed you and not provide context, right, like yeah, he hasn't put up the numbers that you would quite like, ok, so also throwing the fact that he's playing on a bad knee. You know, I don't want to say a bad knee, so I guess I misquoted myself there. But he's not playing on a knee, that's 100 percent. You also have the fact out there that Press Taylor isn't helping him. You know something you can find out from the analysts that covers the AFC South, if you know the analysts follows the Jaguars like they should, which they should because the Jaguars are in first place in the division, but Press Taylor hasn't helped them, you know. So that's part of why the stats don't look like they should and the offensive line is average, if not worse than that, you know. So those are things like, if you're going to say that like you also got a factor in that which obviously kind of Nick Wright more so understands than Bruce Sardes and maybe even Kevin I think it's Kevin Wiles is the other guy. But you know, as you said, man, I think at this point, like I've kind of gotten used to it at the same time. And really, when it comes to like those kind of tastes, of course, like it's nice to have Nick Wright and not check that aspect of it out, but we just more solely, you know, like the local in terms of you know, wig and John Shippley and Demetrius in terms of like, when it comes to like taste like that. So I'm cool with just leaning on the locals when it comes to this stuff and you know the national media just spewing out whatever, but it would be nice, I guess. What I'm trying to say is it would be nice for the national media to be a little bit better prepared to talk about the Jacksonville J yeah that's a good point.
Speaker 1:
56:28
Definitely don't want to hear whoever it may be on on that. Get up panel. Talk about how, you know, trevor Lawrence just isn't performing, the Jaguars aren't, aren't actually good, and then somehow Greeny redirects it, talking about Aaron Rodgers. And I like Greeny, you know. But you know sometimes that whole thing is nothing but theater. But again it's, we get it, we get how it works. So it is what it is. But, jay, anything else you want to mention as we wrap up this episode and look ahead to Pittsburgh and then we get a little bit of a break here with the buy coming up as well. Anything else you want to discuss before we wrap it up?
Speaker 2:
57:08
No, man, none really else to discuss. Of course, check out Touchdown Jaguars and hopefully we'll get you some articles up on there soon. But check out Touchdown Jaguars and, you know, feel free to hit us up on social media as well and let us know how we're doing on the podcast. But yeah, man, another good episode, glad to have five wins under our belt and excited about what's to come in the future with this team.
Speaker 1:
57:38
All right, actually I'll end on this and then we'll wrap up for the week. So there was some talk about this over on Twitter. Now I don't know if this can happen yet. I don't know when the league is able to start flexing games. November 12th the Jaguars play the San Francisco 49ers here in Jacksonville, one of the obviously Niners, highly regarded as probably the best team in football right now. So that's week 10. Currently the matchup is Jets Raiders. Now, those are two big, you know, big time fan bases probably bring in quite a bit of viewers. But who knows where the Niners will be at the time? Who knows what the Jaguars record will look like at that point? But you know, the Jets Raiders, two teams kind of going in opposite directions the Jets maybe finding some footing under Zach Wilson, the Raiders not really sure. Do you think that's an opportunity? Is that even a possibility to happen that early in the season, in week 10? Can they even flex out that game?
Speaker 2:
58:42
Yeah, all the end of the like. The reports indicate that they could flex it out and they should, but well, you know, bearing everything continues to go well for the Jaguars and 49ers. Now I did see a tweet just put out by a shifter, and Demetrius quoted it, saying that Debo Samuel Billy has a hairline fracture fracture. So that could impact the game as well, but the 49ers still are a team. One of those teams is good enough to continue to find ways to win with what they had. They still got McCaffrey, they still got Fred Warner. You know they still have plenty if you take Debo out of the mix. So they should. Even if that's the case with the injury, they should be able to continue to trend upwards. I mean, heck, they only got one loss and that came last week. And you know, of course, us, we feel like we only have room to get better as well. We'll get healthier. So, yeah, I would love to see that game flexed out again. Kind of going back to what we said about the national not even the national media, but more so the national broadcast stations kind of don't give us their respect. I wouldn't be shocked if we couldn't get in that slot. But yeah, when you look at Jets Raiders even if the Jets continue to do their thing right and continue to win, without Aaron Rodgers, the Raiders like they aren't that impressive to want to watch the Jets play them on on TV Not, certainly not as impressive as seeing a matchup between us and the 49ers. So I don't think there's no excuse not to put us there if everything continues to go well for us in the 49ers, and I absolutely would love to see us there. But I have my doubts, especially when it comes to our ability to show up on, to get opportunities on NBC, which have been few and far beyond.
Speaker 1:
1:00:39
Yeah, the other argument can be that the they already play, you know, on the Sunday Night Football on the week 15. So that is December 17th. They have when the Ravens come to town, so they may not want to feature the Jaguars twice on Sunday Night Football, if anything. I mean, maybe could the game be flexed to 4 pm and you make it, you know, the Fox game of the week, or something like that. If it even is on Fox. I don't know if it's on Fox or CBS at the time, so maybe that's a possibility. Like, I think that happened with the cowboy game. But yeah, you know, who knows? Just something that I know people were talking about. Wanted to end on that. But, guys, thank you so much for joining us for another great episode and we appreciate it. And make sure you check out that link tree link that I mentioned at the top of the episode. Find everything you need. Social media links. Link to the website. Promo code touchdown Jaguars over at Seat Geek. Save yourself $20. Let us know that we're doing a good job. Five Star Reviews on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Sharing the episode also does a lot of good as well, so we appreciate that for anybody who is taking the time to do so. So, folks, I am Phil Smith. That is my co-host, james Johnson. Do not forget to tune in to Touchdown Jaguars for every Jaguar touchdown, and we will see you next week.
