JAGUARS HEAD COACH DOUG PEDERSON
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2022
(On OLB Travon Walker’s injury status) “Travon’s doing really well. He had two good days. We’ll ramp up
his practice reps today, so, optimistic, and looks like he’s on track to playing Sunday.”
(On OL Brandon Scherff’s multiple injury battles and if he will be one to be extra careful with the rest of
the season) “Brandon, he’s a unique individual. I think you guys saw it firsthand last week up in New
York. He had that ankle sprain, and he’s been dealing with other issues, and he went back in that
football game. Yeah, you want to be a little cautious with guys like that, but at the same time, if he
wants to go, and he can go, and he can’t hurt himself anymore, then I’ve got to let him play. He’s in a
good spot, but we’ll keep managing that day by day.”
(On if he watched any of yesterday’s Titans game yesterday) “I bounced back and forth between the
bowl game and that game just a little bit. It’s hard to stream Amazon Prime sometimes when you’re in
the building, but I bounced a little bit between that and the bowl games, so I watched a touch.”
(On if DL Foley Fatukasi is on track to play on Sunday) “I do. He’s had a couple good days. We’ll ramp up
his rep count again today and see where he’s at, but he’s on track and [we are] optimistic that he goes
Sunday.”
(On what OLB Travon Walker’s presence does for the whole team) “We know who he is as a player. He
gets excited. He’s an excitable player, brings a lot of energy and a lot of juice to the sideline, to the team,
so it’ll be really good to get him back out on the field if that’s the case and see what he can do again on
Sunday.”
(On if he would handle the playing/resting of players differently if the team was not on a win streak)
“Not at all. When I rested those guys in Philly, it was the last week of the regular season, and we’d
already clinched the number one seed. We’d already clinched the NFC East. We haven’t clinched
anything yet. I feel it’s important that we keep momentum. Keep the streak going if we can and play the
guys that are healthy in this ball game. It means a lot to this organization and to where we are as a
group. We’re a young group that is learning how to win football games. Maybe one day I would treat it
differently, but right now, I think this is the right approach.”
(On his biggest concern about a team that doesn’t have a lot of playoff experience) “Sometimes you
don’t know what you don’t know, and that can be a good thing. At the same time, I think our sense of
urgency has to ramp up each week, the attention to detail, focus, things that we talk about every single
week get magnified as you get closer to the postseason. These next two games for us are just that.
They’re meaningful football games. They have postseason implications, and we have a young football
team that we’re still trying to teach how to win games, how to keep putting ourselves year in and year
out. You want to be in the conversation. You want to be one of those teams at the end of the year in
that conversation for postseason.”
(On if he leans on players who have played in postseason games to influence the team as well) “Those
are great examples of guys who have been in the postseason (OLB Arden Key, WR Marvin Jones Jr., WR
Christian Kirk) on other teams, so we’ve got to bring that same type of culture here. I’ll lean on those
guys. They know how to prepare, know how to get themselves ready to go. What the sense of urgency
means to playing in the postseason. Again, we’ve got a challenge this weekend with Houston. That’s our
first task, and we want to make sure the guys stay locked in and ready for that.”
(On what momentum means to the late season playoff run) “Momentum is a funny thing. It’s a funny
word. Momentum can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. You think of a football
game, just any football game and how it’s the ebb and flow of the game, and the crowd gets into it. The
crowd’s reaction sort of creates this sort of aura that there’s momentum in the football game. I just
think it’s about taking care of business, just focusing in on your job and doing what you can control and
playing together as a football team, and if that creates excitement and enthusiasm in the stadium, then
maybe that’s what momentum is. It’s just about understanding your job, understanding your role, taking
care of the football, creating takeaways, don’t let your quarterback get hit, try to hit their quarterback,
all those things can kind of play into the momentum game just a little bit. I know this time of year you
want to play your best football. We’ve talked a lot about that. You want to peak at the right time, and
you want to keep getting better. That’s what teams here at the end of the season are all doing, and we
want to be one of those.”
(On the impact of having 10 days off between games) “No, the guys have had great energy at practice.
They’re feeling, their bodies are feeling better this late in the year, so that’s always a positive.”
