OFFENSIVE LINEMAN MITCH MORSE
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 2024
(On what he’s found out about the offensive line since practicing in pads) “I thought just the
resilience of the group. We had a few guys go down as is the nature of training camp and
guys stepped in, didn’t bat an eye, worked when they had to. The great thing about that is
when you get off the field, you have this huge kind of lax feel because you know you put
your work in, and then we can make the adjustments and feel free to run and fly around and
make mistakes because we’re just trying to get better. I think this group does a very good
job of that.”
(On early impressions of the run game) “They know what they want to run. The nice thing is
they’re going to stick to it. That gives us the freedom to ask questions, work on the
techniques that they want, not be afraid to make mistakes out here so that we can correct
those in the film room. We can have open dialogue, talk about what we see, what we like,
what we don’t like, and then at least no matter what we’re on the same page. I think just
sticking to that. It’s not going to be pretty every day. It might not be pretty early on in games.
But just to have the confidence in the fact that hopefully, we can continue to call those
even if they aren’t hitting at first, so we can make those in-game adjustments or the sideline
adjustments and not ride a roller coaster at times.”
(On if he can ever be sure about the state of the offensive line until the regular season
starts) “There’s a lot of things you’re not sure about until the regular season starts. You
don’t know who’s going to be suiting up. You don’t know who’s going to be healthy for Week
1 or whatnot. There are so many unknowns, right? But it gives you the confidence when
Week 1 comes that you’ve banked reps, that you’ve seen most every look, that you’ve
talked about it, that we’re all five on the same page, or even Trevor [QB Trevor Lawrence]
and the backs are on the same page, so that when stuff comes up and we have to make
adjustments in game or we get strange looks. We’ve seen it before. They might get us once,
but we can make those adjustments and not panic.”
(On his impression of Lawrence so far) “Yeah, I think just the confidence in the huddle. It’s
not a standoffish confidence or anything like that. If anyone knows Trevor, that’s not him,
right? It’s just he’s got a little moxie about him. I think it’s just he’s well-aged past the age of
what, 24 or 25? His confidence in the play call, his confidence in commanding what he
wants in the huddle or on the line of scrimmage, it permeates to the rest of the guys.
Everyone feels that. You have a guy like that who’s a steady presence at that position, but
when he needs to open up and have a little swagger about him, he does. That’s what you
need in a quarterback.”
(On the timeline for building cohesion as a unit on the offensive line) “I don’t know if it’s fair
to put a specific timeline on, ‘This is when you have to have something.’ This is football,
man. You know what I mean? Rarely are you going to have those five work together from the
start of camp through the end of February or whenever your season ends, right? So, for us,
we have to understand that in games people might go down. There might be a switch-up of
things. So, it actually is nice right now to have the confidence working with other dudes.
See how they tick, see what their thought process is and vice versa. So yeah, for us, we’re
just going to get our work in. Hopefully, those guys get back as healthy as possible and then
we’ll roll from there, and just kind of take the next swing that comes with it.”
(On what he likes about the way the team uses the run game) “I think I like the definitive
rules. Football is a game of rules, not only for official sakes, but protections and run game
and such. There’s not much gray area, so you don’t have to think. If you can eliminate as
much thinking as possible… You’re going to have that inherently, thinking throughout a play,
but you can kind of just let your fundamentals run free and you have answers for stuff.
They’re giving us answers to things that we might see, different fronts or different checks to
get into, which I think is a great thing to have.”
(On his relationship with RB Travis Etienne Jr.) “I love what I’ve seen from Travis. Guy runs—
he’s always smiling. I don’t know what it is. He’s a young guy. Always smiling. It’s good to
see.”
(On his relationship with OL Anton Harrison) “Listen, I think you lose mobility as you get
older. Football is a very frustrating game in which by the time you really learn to appreciate
it, you can’t quite do the things you’re used to anymore. It’s just a circular thing in time
where it’s the older guys saying, ‘Don’t blink because it’ll end,’ and the young guys thinking,
‘Kick rocks, old guy,’ and ‘My body feels great,’ and so on and so forth. I’m sitting here at
year 10 remembering the older guys telling me how fast this thing is going and me going
through my first training camp thinking these days never end. So just with that time you’ve
accrued a lot of football, you see stuff. Most of the time it’s just like, hey, continue what
you’re doing. Don’t second guess yourself, right? You have so many tools. You have the keys
to the castle, man. You are such a talented player. That doesn’t only go for him, it goes for a
lot of the guys. For me, I’m just trying to give the guys confidence to go out and play, get
them in the right position and then hopefully able to do my job to a certain extent.”
(On what he brings to short-yardage goal-line situations and how the team can improve in
that area) “Well, I think you can only do so much short-yardage goal line while you’re
practicing against your own guys, right? You have to balance between getting those reps
where there is a certain violence and physicality to it, but you also want to have guys be
able to play on Sundays or ensuing practices. I think that’s when Coach [Coach Doug
Pederson] has these few days where we do that, and we take those seriously, and then just
banking reps in mentally. Then understanding that when push comes to shove, and we have
these opportunities in the game, take advantage of them, and then you work on them.
Hopefully, you’re better in short-yardage goal-line at the end of the year than you are at the
beginning. Not to say you want to be terrible at it at the beginning of the year, but I think
coaches have to balance a delicate line and ours do that pretty well.”
(On what he’s seen from rookie defensive linemen, particularly DT Maason Smith) “I think
Maason’s got such a bright future in this league. He’s got the physical tools, of course. You
can see that he’s got these spurts of just not only athletic power, but he’s really working
some moves. I think your first year is such a monumental growing experience in the football
realm. It’ll just be fun to see him and work with him as these weeks progress, see him get
better as a football player, immersed in this Nielsen [Defensive Coordinator Ryan Nielsen]
defense, and come out and hopefully have a celebration of those moments on Sundays.
And the other guy [DT Jordan Jefferson] is great too. Unfortunately, he’s been out with an
injury for a bit, the other LSU guy. But I really like him. I really do. I think he’s got a bright
future ahead of him. If he gets back healthy, it’ll be a fun guy to watch.”
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR PRESS TAYLOR
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 2024
(On what WR Gabe Davis has shown since arriving in Jacksonville) “I mean, you really never
know. Obviously, Chad [Wide Receivers Coach Chad Hall] and Heath [Special Teams
Coach Heath Farwell] had a close relationship with him as a player, having coached him in
Buffalo. They’re kind of vouching for the character and personality and things like that, but
he’s been a lot of fun just to add to the group. He brings a lot of humor and obviously he
brings experience so he can communicate with those guys and kind of tell them what it’s
like because we do have a pretty young room. I mean, for the most part, besides Christian
[WR Christian Kirk] and Gabe, most of those guys are first or second-year players that
haven’t played a lot of football in the NFL. I think that kind of experience he brings to it.
Then just being able to see, I think you’ve seen the last couple of days, the different catches
he’s had, the different situations he’s been in, whether it’s out-breakers, in-breakers, down
the field type stuff, contested catchability. Those are the things you probably thought you
saw, but we hadn’t seen him yet live firsthand right here. Then Trevor [QB Trevor Lawrence]
just getting a feel for that timing of how things work with Gabe.”
(On OL Luke Fortner’s switch from center to guard after bringing in OL Mitch Morse) “Yeah,
Luke’s been awesome. I mean, just understanding that what we did in terms of developing
our roster and improving the talent on the team overall. A lot of these guys, the linemen
especially, have to be cross-trained. I mean, you have to be able to play multiple positions.
So, for a guy to play center and now take more reps at guard as we’ve gone in, that just
makes him more valuable to the team. These guys, really they have done whatever we’ve
asked if we can present the vision of helping the team. Across the board with the linemen,
[OL] Walker Little’s played left tackle, right tackle, guard. He’s done a number of things. [OL]
Blake Hance plays every position imaginable for us. There’s a lot of those guys in that room
that have that ability to do that and we appreciate that. It brings, again, an extra value to the
room itself but our team as well.”
(On OL Javon Foster and having a next-man-up mentality amid offensive line injuries)
“Yeah, with Javon you kind of see his experience flash. The guy played a ton of games in the
SEC. He kind of has his way to win. Now there are times when we’re still trying to get certain
techniques out of him as we go. But when the bullets are flying, a lot of times you just kind
of see he knows what to do and he gets it done his way, which works for him. Ultimately,
that’s what we’re trying to do is get it done. But you see he gets a number of reps and
fortunately or unfortunately, some of it’s due to injury, but he’s getting a ton of opportunity
to play and show what he can do and flash that experience for us to where he can become
at some point in time for us, whether this season, early in the season, late in the season, a
trusted resource for us in there.”
(On seeing a role in the offense for RB Keilan Robinson in the future) “Yeah, certainly. I
mean, that’s something they kind of utilized with him in college as well, of being a guy out of
the backfield, carrying the football, some gun-run stuff and things like that. We just want to
see him continue to develop and we’ll figure out what that is as it kind of expresses itself.
Obviously, the first thing is him getting healthy and getting himself an opportunity to take
reps throughout practice so we can kind of see where that goes, get him experienced doing
certain things. We do think he can be a weapon out of the backfield in the pass game and
then figuring out what that looks like as a ball carrier, what types of run he’s good at, kind of
where it falls in situations within a game of how we can use him. But the biggest thing,
especially these guys that are offensive guys that play special teams, they have a jersey on
game day, so we want to use everybody available to us. So, if they provide a value to us,
we’ll find a way to try to use them.”
(On if he thinks the offensive physicality will be better this year) “That’s something we think
we’re heading in the right direction. That’s something I don’t know if you necessarily know
until it’s live-action and we’re playing football. But we’re encouraged about where we’re
heading with that aspect of our game and our unit as well. That’s something we want to see
continue to develop as we get rolling.”
(On how he thinks RB Travis Etienne Jr., TE Evan Engram, Kirk, Lawrence and other young
veterans on the offensive are growing into his system) “I think so. I think a lot of it is kind of
when we get in these competitive situations against our defense, as competitive as it can
be, you see Trevor kind of pull out different tools within the offense and those guys don’t
flinch at all. Particularly Christian and Evan. Those guys are right there communicating
really well. Then it helps to add an experienced guy like Gabe that kind of understands what
that looks like. Then a smart guy like Brian [WR Brian Thomas Jr.] being able to get in that
situation now. We’re just trying to kind of overexpose them to everything. This could come
up. We’ll show them video clips of, hey, we had this play called. Trevor got to this. The ball
was snapped two seconds later. How quickly you have to communicate in this league. But
that’s something we talk about, Trevor growing within the system and taking ownership of it.
You kind of want to—Trevor can get you into whatever you need to depending on the look or
the situation as it goes. We don’t want the guys around him to flinch. We want them to just
kind of react naturally or even anticipate that stuff as it goes.”
(On Thomas Jr. coming out of his shell) “His personality is pretty consistent. He is who he
is. He’s not a guy that gives you a ton of juice, a ton of energy at times, but he’s very locked
in. He’s very serious about what he does. He continues to develop. I mean, you see Gabe
kind of ribs him quite a bit to where you get a little bit more out of him at times. You see him
laugh and smile and joking around with the guys quite a bit. But I do think he’s a little bit
more comfortable in his environment as he goes. We just encourage him to be who he is.
We’re not trying to change him at all. We’re very happy with the person he is. We
understood the person he is that we brought into the team. Like any of our young guys, we
just want them to feel accepted to where they can let their personality show as they get
going. We encourage everybody to be who they are.”
(On Lawrence’s recent improvement on turnovers) “Yeah, I think that’s just kind of how
training camp goes. I know Coach [Head Coach Doug Pederson] has mentioned it. We
encourage him to kind of see what you can get away with. Not in a reckless way, but if they
play a certain look, maybe we’re not necessarily thinking a certain route, but right here, let’s
take a shot at it. There are times we’ll tell a receiver, if they play this, try this, he’s going to
let this thing go. There are some of those situations. There are some scenarios where we’re
working—yesterday, I think we had some seven-on-seven where it’s third and goal from the
11, 12, whatever it may be, and we’re telling Trevor, this is a chance to either extend a play
where you’re going to scramble in the red zone, or you try to be aggressive right here
because this is a potential four-point play. You may rip this ball a little bit sooner than you
would in other scenarios, but let’s see if we can get this going, see if we can get the timing
of how this looks against certain coverages.”
(On focusing more on short and intermediate routes in practices so far instead of using
Thomas Jr. deep) “I think there’s an element to that. I think part of that too is just Coach’s
vision for how to start training camp. I think just the experience of him planning training
camp schedules and things like that, you want to think guys are ready to come play football
the day they get here. Well, that’s not necessarily the case. I think part of it’s the way that
the NFL’s adapted with the acclimation period as we go. So, just trying to be smart of, these
guys haven’t played football in three months. To come out, and a normal install, and ask
guys to run 45 yards downfield, I don’t know that their bodies are ready for that. Then you
start getting the soft-tissue injuries that set you back throughout the course of camp. So
yes, it’s frustrating at times because you’ve got this new tool that you want to get down the
field and really expose to certain things, but is that the best thing for the player, for our team
as we get going in the long run of camp? Camp is really just a ramp-up to Week 1. That’s
how we view it. And yes, we’d love to win every single day, including day one, but ultimately,
we want to be ready to play Week 1.”
(On what impression RB Jalen Jackson has made) “Jalen’s done a good job. All those guys,
as they get reps, particularly these young guys, you start to see them understand blocking
schemes, paths. There are some zone runs where you’ll see a guy try to make two cuts and
we’ll try to explain that this is a one-cut run right here. You’ve got one opportunity to cut
vertical and then you’ve got to roll and you’ve got to see it. Some of that, exposing them to
the live periods, which we did a little bit of the other day, I think that really helps because
now if you make a mistake, you feel it. Guys like that really settle in and he’s done a good
job catching the ball in the backfield as well with some of the running back routes that
we’ve tried to incorporate.”
