JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS HEAD COACH DOUG MARRONE
Opening remarks: “First of all, obviously Houston is a good football team. We weren’t able to accomplish what we felt we needed to accomplish during the game. You know, I think that, I said before, we knew going into the game that Deshaun Watson is an MVP candidate and we weren’t able to get him down a couple times early on, elusive, ran the football, extended the play, made good throws. But we were trying to get it to where we got him — we weren’t able to get him into the third-down situations where we felt it kind of tilted our way. And we were able to keep them on the field for quite a long time. I thought our defense played well, giving up the field goal, then obviously we give up the touchdown, block the extra point. Offensively we had two drives, the first two drives we really didn’t do anything. The third drive we drove down there and then obviously fell short and kicked a field goal.
“I think offensively we didn’t have a lot clicking, and this is a league where you’re going to have to score points, especially when you play Houston, and we weren’t able to do that.
“You know, I’m disappointed in the performance. I know that this team can perform better, and it starts with me, and I’ve got to do a better job. They work hard during the week. They care about each other. But it’s disappointing when you go out there and you don’t perform like you want to. At the end of the day, when you don’t do that against a good football team, you’re not going to win.
“We’re going to take some time. We’ll go back and watch this film. We’ll get away a little bit, get away from football, and then come back with a laser-like focus and start again and finish up the second half of the season better than we started.”
Q: You don’t have to make a decision till next week but this week was the first Gardner (Minshew) looked like a rookie quarterback. Does that affect your decision going forward?
“Well, I haven’t spoken to either quarterback yet, and I hate talking through the media about my plans, but the plans were — again, the disappointment of the team, not performing well, will be on my mind now for the next 48 hours. I think after those 48 hours are over, I’m going to step away a little bit, take a break because I don’t have to make a decision and have time. That’s what I’m going to talk to the quarterbacks about, and then I’ll tell them probably right before we come back on Sunday, we’ll be able to discuss where we’re going to go. That’s pretty much my plan.”
Q: Is it fair to say that the judgment on him will not be on one game?
“On one game?”
Q. Yeah.
“Yeah, you know, I’ve got a lot of questions, and I’m not naïve… And it’s not one game, it’ll be a body of work.”
Q. Has Gardner himself said anything to you as he came off the field about the interceptions?
“I think when you get behind and you’re trying to make plays and you’re moving around in the pocket and the ball sails a little bit, those things are going to happen. You don’t want it to happen. I’m sure we’re not trying to do that. But those balls got high and they were able to get interceptions. It’s unfortunate. It’s not what they’re playing for. But he was moving around there a little bit, so that always plays into it, too.”
Q. You alluded to it a little bit ago, but those three near-sacks the first half, had three opportunities to get him down. Those missed sacks resulted in a field goal, a touchdown and then the missed field goal going into the half, in terms of flipping the score and getting the momentum back, how big was not getting him down?
“Yeah, you know, the way I would like to answer that question is that first of all, it’s a great job being able to beat someone, right? Know what I’m saying? Like to get to a position where you’re able to make that play. I think the guy we were playing against, the quarterback, rather than looking at it as, ‘Hey listen, we missed something,’ I look at it as ‘That guy is just unbelievable.’ His fluidity — I don’t know if that’s even the right word — of when he gets hit or when he gets grabbed and he can move and escape, I don’t — I’ve seen him do it against everyone.
“It’s tough. The one thing our guys are doing, those guys were doing on those plays, you talk about effort, it’s all you can get out of it. Sure, were we wanting to get him down? Absolutely. But I don’t want to make it like it’s a missed sack where they ran by and did something poorly. I look at it as the quarterback was just exceptional at being able to avoid it. I hope I answered that.”
Q. How much does the missed field goal, the potential trick play, how much does that impact the team?
“ I think it does. I think football is a game of momentum, and I think that’s something that was disappointing. I thought that Logan (Cooke) did a great job getting the snap down. I talked to Josh (Lambo) coming off, and he said he didn’t feel he was going to be able to kick it, and it’s just unfortunate because that was the first drive of the second half in a 9-3 game. I look back at two things. It was right before the half, we wanted to hit the receiver, go down, call a timeout and then either take a shot at a long field goal or throw a Hail Mary. We missed that opportunity, and I don’t know what would have happened. And then obviously you kick the field goal. Get a little bit of momentum, at least that first drive coming out you score, then you wind up giving them the ball somewhere close to the 50, and I thought our defense did a good job just holding them to three.”
Q. How do you think the line held up against their front?
“I think people always say — I said this before during the week — J.J. Watt is a Hall of Fame player, great player. But they have a lot of other good players up front. I think when you look at them defensively and you look at the guys up front, I said it during the week, I think D.J. Reader is probably one of the best players I know that we play against on a consistent basis, and not a lot of guys know about him because they’re not in our division. But all those guys up front are very strong, very solid. Anthony Weaver is their defensive line coach. I think he does a great job.
“We knew coming in that would be a battle.”
Q. There was an exchange of words with the Houston bench at one point. Do you know anything about that, and was that just a demonstration of frustration? Any idea what sparked that?
“Oh, I didn’t see what happened, and I didn’t have chance to talk to him, so I don’t know. He’d be better to answer that question.”
JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS QUARTERBACK GARDNER MINSHEW
Q. Just talk about the whole frustration of the day. It’s the first time you’ve experienced a whole 60 minutes. Talk about what that was like for you start to finish?
“Yeah, it sucks, man. Didn’t execute at times, didn’t make plays we needed to win. So yeah, it’s no fun.”
