JAGUARS HEAD COACH URBAN MEYER
Jaguars vs. 49ers
Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021
Q. Urban, after a performance like today, what do you tell the team afterwards? Does this in any way diminish the optimism you have for the remainder of the season?
URBAN MEYER: No. I know — for those that know me or maybe don’t know me, no, I love our quarterback. I love our owner. I love the fact that we have a good core group of players. I was extremely disappointed with everything about today, but you keep going and keep working. There’s times we played excellent football. Today wasn’t one of those days. So we’ve got another chance to prove to our home crowd that we love them, care about them, and we’re going to play hard next week against the Falcons. That’s the way I look at it.
Q. Coach, there’s one thing to not play your best or play excellent football. It’s a whole other thing to play what you guys put out there on the field today ten games in. Do you have any idea where it went wrong and how it unraveled to that point?
URBAN MEYER: Yeah, defensively, third downs, we couldn’t get off the field on our first drive. They took basically the whole first quarter, but that’s a very good football team too, by the way. I think they’re kind of hitting their stride, very good players, good scheme. You saw what I saw. About four times they had a chance to get off the field and we didn’t do it. Offensively, I think we had three and out and then a turnover. We had four plays in the first quarter, I think. Then Trevor, I thought, in the group took them right down the field and kicked a field goal, and that was the first half. But to answer your question, yeah, I’m not going to panic. That was a very poor display of football in so many areas, but go back to work and try to beat the Falcons next week.
Q. Could you address Fernando Lovo leaving, going back to Texas?
URBAN MEYER: Yeah, he came to me last week, and he wants to be an athletic director, and they offered him a really good job. I knew that. Fernando’s like a son to me, so all positive.
Q. When you and Trevor were talking at the end of the game, what was that conversation with him like? Was it trying to just keep his spirits up because he’s never been through this? URBAN MEYER: Yeah, I just love the guy. How do you not? The guy, it’s all good, it’s all work, it’s all positive. You saw what I saw. He took the field, tempo, moving the ball. I love Cam Robinson. He kept going and going and going even after he got dinged. There’s so many great things. That’s why you get your ass kicked and there’s going to be a day when we don’t get our ass kicked here. It’s coming. I know that guy is going to be a part of it, that 6 foot whatever it is quarterback. I care deeply for that guy.
Q. Coach, you guys are already kind of thin at the wide receiver position. What could that injury to Jamal Agnew mean for the rest —
URBAN MEYER: Devastating. He’s our — we all know what kind of person he is, talented guy, fast guy. So we’ll know more tomorrow, but that’s a hit square in the jaw. That’s a problem.
Q. Urban, in terms of the play calling, what were your conversations both in game, and I know clearly you haven’t had a chance to watch the tape back. But looking at last week, looking at this week, what have your conversations been with Darrell Bevell?
URBAN MEYER: A lot of respect for Bev. I think it’s a little bit like the quarterback. I’m very transparent with our staff. If I think it’s a really bad play call or lack of execution, we address it. We’ve tried to adapt a little bit. I was really disappointed today because we had some things that I thought were things that Trevor was really good at, and we just never got to it because we just didn’t play well. So, yeah, Bev’s an excellent football coach, and so is Schotty, and those guys work together. Obviously, the product’s got to improve here quickly, but I have confidence they’ll do it. We’ll do it.
Q. Seven games left, and you hate to start asking about staff changes. With seven games left, there was a report today that you’ve been really harsh on the running backs coach and the receivers coach and they’ve been taking the brunt of maybe your criticisms behind the scenes. Is there any truth to that? URBAN MEYER: There’s a report, you said? No, the only report, all due respect, is the report from me? We’re a very transparent staff, and I’m very transparent and have always been. I have high expectations. When someone’s not performing well, yeah, we have hard conversations, but that’s the game of football. So that report is incorrect. Do I have high expectations for position groups? Absolutely. Very high expectations. If it’s not fulfilled, then we have to have a conversation about it.
Q. The third down penalties on defense, there were a few times in the first half where you guys got a stop, and a penalty gave San Francisco the first down. How can you move past that and get it through to the defense that those are mistakes you can’t make?
URBAN MEYER: There was a holding and a sack, right? Was it Rayshawn? That’s not like him. I know he had a taunting one earlier in the year or something. I’ll chat with him tomorrow. Once again, there’s — the holding, I didn’t see it. The fight, I saw something going on off to the side. It looked like two guys going after each other. What can you do? I’m going to go address it. He is a captain. He’s very well respected, respected by me, but we’ve got to get that fixed.
Q. Urban, that’s where I was going to ask you as well. Do you feel like you’re in a position where you can be hard on a veteran like that when they make a mistake and they get ejected? What’s the balance? URBAN MEYER: The days of being hard, in my opinion, I think it’s the days of being honest. 15 years ago, it was a whole different animal, and that’s at all levels. Being hard, especially a grown man like Rayshawn Jenkins, what the heck’s going on, man? Let’s get that corrected. He’d be the first one, why the heck? There’s no defiance. If there were defiance, it would be a problem. So we’re just going to have a grown man conversation. You can’t do that, especially in your position, any position.
Q. Coach, you’ve talked a lot about building the confidence of this young team over the course of the year and how you need that confidence to play with it. What does a game like today due to the confidence?
URBAN MEYER: It hurts it. I think we won two out of three at one point. So you started feeling good. You got victory meals. People starting to get a pep in their step around here a little bit. Defense was one of the top defenses in the last four games. You kind of feel a little juice going, and then you play like that. We’ve got to get them back. That’s my job, that’s our staff’s job and our leaders’ job. That was a sting to it, but we’ll be back.
Q. You mentioned one time overconfidence is just as bad as not being confident. Do you feel some players started to get a little overconfident?
URBAN MEYER: You’d have to ask them. I would be shocked. I think defensively they’re feeling pretty good about themselves because they’re playing very good, and today we didn’t play very good.
Q. Dan Mullen was fired for the first time in his life today.
URBAN MEYER: She just told me that.
Q. What was your reaction to Dan?
URBAN MEYER: He’s one of my close friends. He’s a guy that was with me 15-plus years. I didn’t see that one coming. I know the expectations in Florida. I lived it. It is a premier place. Dan and Megan are dear friends. I’m sure Shelley talked to Megan. So I’ll call him tonight. It’s a tough profession.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
JAGUARS QB TREVOR LAWRENCE
Jaguars vs. 49ers
Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021
Q. Could you just talk about where you guys go from this point forward? You’ve always maintained a very optimistic attitude, but it just didn’t seem like there was a whole lot of positivity that came out of this game.
TREVOR LAWRENCE: Yeah, there’s not much left to say. Like you said, [we] just got to keep going. Season’s not going to get cancelled. We’ve got seven more games, eight more games. Is it seven or eight? Seven. Seven more games left. We’ve got a lot of ball left. [We have to] just get better every week. But yeah, I’m not going to sit up here and say all the positive things that came out of it. There’s not much of it today. We got our butt kicked. It didn’t look good all the way around. Where you go from here is just keep going to work, everybody stay together, keep fighting. I know I will. I’m never going to quit, and I know we’ve got enough guys to turn this thing around. It’s up to us. We’ve got to make that decision, so [we] just got to keep working.
Q. You’ve not dealt with anything like this before in your career, high school, college obviously. How tough is this for you to go through and who are you relying on to help you get through this mentally? TREVOR LAWRENCE: Just everybody, the whole team. We’ve got a lot of guys, especially in the quarterback room, a lot of the coaching staff as well. But the team’s done a great job of sticking together just throughout all the good and bad that’s happened. Like I said, that’s the main thing right now is just to continue to do that. We have seven games left. We’ve got to just stick together, keep fighting, and go play our best ball moving forward. You kind of see in years past other teams, maybe even here, wherever, where at the end of the season it just keeps going downhill. We’re not going to do that, so [we have to] just to keep fighting. We’ve got to put better stuff out there on the field and that was bad today, so we’ll have to watch the tape. I can’t give you guys too many answers right now. I’ve got to go watch it. We’ve just got to be better.
Q. I’m sure there’s some frustrations with how the offense looked on the field today. What were those discussions with your receivers on the sideline like during the game today?
TREVOR LAWRENCE: [We were] just trying to get on the same page. San Francisco did a nice job. They didn’t do anything too complicated, but they played a lot of man coverage. It’s not something they’ve done a lot of in the past, they’re a big zone team, besides on third down. They came out and challenged us and played a lot of man. We had some good adjustments, we got to some things, made a few plays early on after the first two drives, kind of settled in on that long drive, but we’ve got to communicate better. We’ve got to put each other in better situations. That was just kind of us trying to figure out what we wanted to do and make sure we’re on the same page. If I wanted to change to a certain look or whatever it was, just make sure we’re all good. I thought at the end we put together a nice drive, so that was good at least.
Q. In the past when you’ve had a slump as an offense at whatever level, what gets you out of it?
TREVOR LAWRENCE: Yeah, I don’t think there’s one answer to that. Something definitely that’s helped in the past is you just need a spark. You need guys to make plays. It’s all of us. It’s me. It’s receivers, running backs, wideouts. It’s just everybody. Someone make a play, get some momentum, and we just didn’t. We didn’t make any big plays today, so we’ve got to be better. We could have used a few sparks. You saw we were starting to do that as the year went on, and the past few games offensively haven’t been great, so we’ve got to find that again. But like I said, I don’t want to say too much until I watch the tape and see for sure.
Q. I know obviously you talked primarily to Passing Game Coordinator Brian Schottenheimer during the game, but what were your conversations with Offensive Coordinator Darrell Bevell following the game, during the game, as far as the play calling went?
TREVOR LAWRENCE: It’s similar. Like offensive coordinator and quarterback, you’re going to catch all the good things when you’re playing well and catch all the bad when things aren’t going well on offense. We just all got to help each other out. We’ve got to help Bev [Offensive Coordinator Darrell Bevell] out. I mean there’s only so much he can do. He’s the one calling the plays. We’re the ones out there on the field. We’ve got to make plays, and we have to be better. We haven’t had a detailed conversation yet. I talked to him right after. I got his back. We’re in it together. I know he’s the same way with me, so we’re not concerned about that. Like I said, I just need to watch it, and we need to get together and talk about some things and see, but I thought that we had a good game plan. I thought we had answers. For whatever reason, [on the] first drive [it was a] three and out, missed a throw there. Then the next drive, [we] turned it over. Then San Francisco, I mean, they held the ball for forever. They had a great game plan, used the clock, time of possession. They did a good job. Then we had that long drive at the end of the first half, had a little bit of momentum, and then coming out of halftime stalled out again. [We need to] just consistently playing better, putting drives together. Our defense holds them on that first drive. That was like 10 or 11 minutes. Shoot, it might have been 12 minutes long. 13? It was 13 minutes long, but we held them to three points. After all that, they only got three points out of it. You can’t go three and out right there. We were on the field for probably like 40 seconds. You can’t do that. We’ve got to help them, and that’s all of us playing better, being in the right situation. Yeah, that’s one example of didn’t play complementary at all. We were minus two in the margin, so that went into it too.
Q. There’s a level of expectation for captains. Did S Rayshawn Jenkins say anything in the locker room afterwards? Was he even there?
TREVOR LAWRENCE: I didn’t really even see what happened honestly. He was in there, though, and he was in there at halftime talking to everybody and just encouraging everybody. His spirits were all right. I don’t even really know what happened, but we got his back. Nothing’s going to change.
Q. It looked like in the third quarter on the second three and out, you were looking at the sideline, and you put the palms out signal to open up the playbook. Can you elaborate on that and what you actually meant with that?
TREVOR LAWRENCE: That’s not what I meant. That’s part of our offense, so I can’t elaborate too much on that. But that’s not what I meant, no. That’s funny you say that, though. No, that’s just one of our signals, so [I] trying to get that communicated to all of our guys, change the look.
Q. I know you and Head Coach Urban Meyer had arms around each other at the end of the game there. Was that a moment where you guys are trying to just get through it or just figure out what’s going on, or is it one of those conversations of hang in there, better things are ahead type of thing? TREVOR LAWRENCE: A little bit of all. [It was] just him encouraging me, just talking for a quick second. Obviously, that’s tough. You go out there and you prepare, and you work hard to put that on the field, it’s
like, gosh, it sucks. It’s a bad feeling, so I just told him I’m going to keep fighting. Like it doesn’t matter the situation, I’m always going to be me. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m going to keep being the same guy, coming back every day, grinding. We’ve got a lot of guys like that. There’s not a magic pill, like this is what we need to do to fix it. We all just have to take ownership and be better. Until we do that, it’s going to be the same thing. We’ve got to keep going, keep going back to work, and it will come, but this is definitely disappointing.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
JAGUARS DE/OLB JOSH ALLEN
Jaguars vs. 49ers
Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021
Q. Josh, could you just talk about how discouraging, if that’s the right word to use, a performance like that is today for a defense where you guys seemed like you had it all together here the last couple of games.
JOSH ALLEN: Man, it was just football plays, man. You know what I’m saying? We felt like we were in a position to make plays during the actual plays, but it was just the penalties, you know what I’m saying? We had a 20-play drive, you know what I mean? To still hold them to three points, I think it was still impressive. Nevertheless, we’re definitely going to get — there’s no response, man. I got to watch this film. I got to watch the film.
Q. Do you worry about the psyche of this team at all? And maybe even the psyche of Trevor Lawrence a little bit?
JOSH ALLEN: No. I mean, I hope not. That’s what we preach on, you know what I’m saying. I know, as of right now, as a player, we just played this game an hour ago or whatever. I’m mad. I want to watch this film, you know what I’m saying? I want to learn from the mistakes that I made, the mistakes I feel like I could have done better in if I have (another chance), and just to grow from it. To move on to Atlanta. We’ve got Atlanta Sunday. Then Thanksgiving is next week. So we’ve got a quick turnaround. We’ve got to be locked in. We’ve got to move on. We’ve got to learn from our mistakes and not make the same mistake because you know they carry on. So learn from these mistakes, grow from it, get better, and play great football.
Q. Can you just physically, emotionally walk us through that 20-play opening drive, what that did for you guys, what you guys were talking about on your side of the ball throughout that drive, 13 minutes of game clock?
JOSH ALLEN: Just get off the field. You know, it was a long drive, but it wasn’t — it was tiring, you know what I’m saying? They really weren’t going fast, but it was just we had opportunities to get off the field, but it was penalties, you know what I’m saying? Nobody losing a rep. Nobody losing a one-on-one. It was penalties. So we had opportunities to get off the field, and I feel like that could have changed the momentum of the game. You never know which play is going to be that play, but I had a gut feeling that, if we would have got off the field early with that team, I feel like we would have had a bigger spark in the game instead of holding to three points.
Q. You just mentioned that you’re mad after this one. Is this a feeling that — I mean, I guess the whole defensive group kind of has that — you feel like you kind of let the performances that were stacking that you’ve talked about recently, kind of down after this performance today?
JOSH ALLEN: I can’t really say how a player played individually. What I know — what I knew, though, we lost because of penalties, I feel like. Until I watch the film, yeah, I’ll probably have a different view. But from what I see and what I feel, I feel like, if we didn’t have as many penalties, we would have had
momentum earlier, and I feel like that could have changed the outcome of the game. But the way it happened, it is what it is. We lost bad. It’s embarrassing, and we should feel (bad) — because no group played special, you know what I’m saying? We can all testament. I can speak for that too. I feel like as a D-line, the standard we hold ourselves, I feel like we can always play better. DBs, the offense, special teams, you know what I’m saying? We just all have to take accountability for ourselves and to look at the film and really grow from this as a player watching yourself. Hopefully guys do that. I know I’m going to do it, and I’m going to — you know what I’m saying? I’m still going to take the positive out of this and move forward.
Q. All these games now out of the way, what are your expectations, you personally and the team, going forward until the end here?
JOSH ALLEN: Four-to-six, A to B, plus two, that’s our motto here. We’re going to continue to play that standard every week. We’re going to continue to play that standard until the end of the year. I think that answered it. Sorry, I kind of forgot mid-talking. What was that question again?
Q. Your expectations as well as the team’s expectations going forward.
JOSH ALLEN: Going forward? Man, it’s the NFL. Week by week, you can never overlook a week. In this week, we’ve got Atlanta, you know what I mean? We have to execute. I know the coaches are going to do their job and get into this film, break this film down so they can start working on Atlanta. I’m ready to go home, watch this film, and grow from it. I feel like everybody is going to feel the same way too. It’s growth for the team. Hopefully we grow from it.
Q. Josh, the penalties, just as a defense, what does it take to kind of erase those? Is it just kind of a mindset, a mentality to not make self-inflicted mistakes?
JOSH ALLEN: Situations, I don’t know. I know (Jaguars defensive lineman Dawuane Smoot) Smoot jumped offsides, but he was working on something. So you have things like that. Or if a player trips, you know what I’m saying, it can be a holding call. Just situations, you know what I’m saying? Just know where you’re at in the game. If you’re going to jump offsides, that’s going to happen. Roughing the passer, I don’t know. I thought that was some crap. You’ve just got to know the situations and know what we can and can’t do.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
JAGUARS DT MALCOM BROWN
Jaguars vs. 49ers
Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021
Q. Malcom, what did you think about the defense’s performance today?
MALCOM BROWN: Obviously, it wasn’t good enough to get the job done. We didn’t keep points off the board, whatever. We’ve just got to get in there and get back to work, just sharpen up our keys. Whatever it was from this game. We’ve got to get back and watch the film and tackle whatever those things are, the mistakes, whatever it may be.
Q. That first drive by the San Francisco 49ers, I think it was like 20 plays. Have you ever been a part of that? How wearing is that on a defense to be on the field for that long?
MALCOM BROWN: I don’t usually get the play count on the first drive or whatever, so I don’t really know how many plays I’ve technically been in on the first drive or whatever. But I mean, it was a long drive. We’ve got to get them off the field whenever it’s time to get them off the field, whatever it may be. We’ve just got to play our ball at the end of the day. Penalties, all that stuff we can’t have, all the mistakes. Come out, play communicated defense, a mistake-free defense, and we’ll be good.
Q. Obviously, they were down their running backs. Your defense has been tremendous against the run. What did 49ers WR Deebo Samuel present that maybe you guys weren’t prepared for or weren’t able to counter today?
MALCOM BROWN: Like I said, I’ve got to get back to the film and watch it. I haven’t really watched it. I’m playing from the inside out, from the A and B gap, looking out. So, I can’t tell you exactly what he did good, whatever he did bad until I watch the film and actually get to sit there and look at everything they did on offense, and then I’ll react to it.
Q. Head Coach Urban Meyer’s talked a lot about the team building confidence. This is a young roster and a franchise that had gone a while without a win. You guys started to string something together. It felt like the team was getting more confident. What does a game like today do to that confidence that was building, especially in some of the younger players?
MALCOM BROWN: You don’t lose [any] confidence. Our confidence is still where it’s at. We’ve got to fix the mistakes and stuff. The things that happened today that we normally don’t do or we’re getting better at and things that started pop up again, we need to just hone back in on those things. [We’ve got to] get back down to whatever the key things are that we always do, get back to that instead of playing with mistakes and getting penalties and stuff that we’re doing already, that [were] hurting us already. We’ve just got to get back to playing mistake-free football.
Q. Just talk in particular about the sequence in the first half where you guys picked up a bunch of penalties. S Rayshawn Jenkins kind of lost it a little bit and threw a punch. There were two penalties on one play that gave them a first down inside the 10-yard line. Can you just talk a little bit about that and what that does to a team when you make such self-inflicted errors like that?
MALCOM BROWN: As far as what it does for the team, it gives you more opportunities to continue to drive, get to the first downs, give them three more downs to get a touchdown. All penalties, you never want to have those in the game. We were doing a good job at it. We’ve just got to get back to our technique and things like that, the things that you need so you won’t get penalties. Your hands are in the right place and this-and-that, so we won’t get the penalties. We just need to get back to that in practice and just hone back in on our stuff, like our technique.
