Jaguars Offensive Coordinator John Defilippo

(Opening Statement) “Great to see everybody. I hope everybody is having a great day. Obviously, a tough game on Sunday for us. Not the best performance by anybody, starting with myself. I did not feel like I did a good enough job of putting our players in position to have success. Starting with me, there is no doubt I need to do a better job than I did on Sunday. That is our challenge going forward here: making sure our guys are in spots to be able to make plays. Obviously, we have a tough game on the road this week in Cincinnati. They have some good players on defense and like every week in the NFL, I don’t care what the record is, you have your hands full. We have to be ready to go.”

(On if more teams will play them like New Orleans did) “I don’t know. We will see. We will be ready for it if they do as much as we can. You go into every game anticipating how somebody is going to play you and then if they don’t play you exactly the way you thought, you have to adjust. We’ll be much more prepared for whatever they throw at us this week for sure.”

(On if the team adjusted against the Saints) “Sure. There are some things that I could have done better. There are throws we could have made. There are protections we could have been better on. I think all around as an offense, it just wasn’t our best performance. I am glad that people are … I do not want to say I’m glad, but the standards have been held high here from the start of the season and for the most part, we have gone out there and had success at times and not success at other times on offense. It was kind of one of those games. You move on and that is why you have other games to play. It does not mean that you bury your head in the sand and say it did not happen because then you do not get better, you do not get the chance to evaluate yourself as a coach, yourself as a player, but you learn from all those experiences and you move on and you learn. You are in a constant learning environment in terms of what the defense brings at you and what you need to be ready for.”

(On his confidence in Josh Oliver and potentially using Seth DeValve more in the passing game) “We have a plan for everything – if Josh is ready to go, if he is not ready to go. I thought Seth went in there on Sunday and made a really nice catch for us there on third down, diving to make a play, which gave us a chance to go for it there on fourth down. He’s continuing to get better and learning the system obviously being a late arrival. He’s a smart guy, so it didn’t take him very long, but he is just getting accustomed to everything and we have to plan for everything.”

(On how Gardner Minshew II has been with self-evaluation) “He has been great. Let me tell you something – one thing in my career is that I have been fortunate to be around a lot of good young quarterbacks. When I was with Derek Carr his rookie year and he set all kinds of rookie records, he started the season 0-10. We go up to Cincinnati [durng] Carson Wentz’s rookie year and if you ask Carson, that was like an out of body experience, that game for him. Guys go through this. It is a learning stage for these young quarterbacks and to think that a quarterback is going to go out every week and perform at an All-Pro high, high level. I think you are foolish to be quite honest with you. They are going to have bumps in the road, offenses are going to have bumps in the road. Coaches … As I said earlier, I did not feel like I called my best game. Again, you learn from it and you move on and you cannot let it compound into the next week. That is the biggest thing as a quarterback in this league, as a coach in this league – you have to have short-term memory. If you do not have short-term memory, you are not going to last long in this league. That has been my thing with Gardner this week and with myself. We have kind of teamed up together this week to have short-term memory, to move on and to go play well against Cincinnati.” 

(On if Gardner Minshew II is as accountable talking with the team as he is in the media) “Yes. 100 percent. It is a fine line when you are dealing with young quarterbacks. There are a lot of things that go into playing quarterback in this league from protection to routes to changing the protection to what the defense is giving you. You just have to make sure that these guys understand that they do not need to be superman every week to go out and win. We have plenty of players around him at every position on our offense to be able to go out and help him win a football game. We are not in the situation where the quarterback has to put the whole burden on himself to go out and win. That is the beauty of football. It is the best team game ever. It is a fine line of being disappointed and at the same time, short-term memory and being able to move on. That will be fun to watch him when he goes out and plays well this week to see him move on.”

(On what dictates when he calls screen passes) “Yes. We have had a decent mix of receiver screens and running back screens this year. We probably need to do a little bit more of that. It is just more of the situation that you are in determining on what coverage you need to get. If it is a man game, certain screens and certain screens aren’t good. Zone game, same thing. It is just a matter of what you think you are getting coverage-wise.”

(On if he has to be more creative with the personnel decisions due to the injuries at tight end) “Yes. Here is the thing with the tight end position – we just got Ben [Koyack] back and we are happy he is back. Seth [DeValve] has not played a lot of football for us and then Josh [Oliver]. It is more of the unknown. That is what it is. It is more of the unknown in terms of what those guys can do. It does make it difficult when the learning process is a little bit more during the game in the regular season, but that is not an excuse. Those guys are totally bought in and going to play well. However and wherever we go in terms of the tight end personnel this week, I think you will see those guys play good.”

(On getting Chris Conley more involved) “It is a good question. We always want to get Chris involved, and we always want to get all of our guys involved. Last week, it was a tight ballgame, our defense was playing really good and in the second half, I stuck with the run a little bit to take a little bit of pressure off of our quarterback. I thought that was going to give us the best chance to win. You have certain plays designed for certain guys and like the long touchdown pass to Chark against Carolina – the first progression on that play was actually Chris. The safety got deep so we threw it underneath. There are certain big plays that he has been scripted for that just the defense did not give to us and we got off them. It is not by design that Chris is not targeted or getting the football, but like I said, we want to get everybody involved in our offense.”

(On what void is left in the offense if WR Marqise Lee does not play in Week 7 at Cincinnati) “I think anytime you miss a guy like Marqise Lee, I think it’s not a good thing. But again, we’re ready for guys to step up and play. Keelan Cole does a really nice job for us, C.J. Board is a young player that I’m really impressed with that’s come along. He’s got a ton of speed and he’s worked his butt off to be able to make this football team, and I’m proud as heck of him and he’ll be ready to go. So, if we need both those guys, then those guys will be ready to go, but obviously we’d like to get Marqise back sooner than later.”

(On if the offense running effectively to the left side is a credit to OL Cam Robinson) “Yeah. Cam’s [Robinson] a physical guy. He’s a really physical guy, and then you have [Andrew] Norwell over there, those are two big men over there that can create some space for the runner and Leonard’s [Fournette] obviously done a nice job. But yeah, that’s a credit to the left side. Here’s the other thing, too; people don’t understand [that] backside cutoffs when you’re running left, right, that’s a huge piece of it as well, of the backside getting to second level and getting to the mike [line]backer, getting go the sam line[backer] on the back side of the run game. So, when you’re running one way or the other, it’s just not the guys on the left side, it’s really a component of the whole thing. The safety getting dug out by the x in a closed split if you’re running to the left out of a three-by-one formation, all those things, so it’s a credit to our offense. And it’s funny, I’ve seen the stats and they’re kind of wild.”

(On how much the field position in the Week 6 game against New Orleans affected their scripted plays) “Here’s the thing; we expect to go out and score anytime we get the football. We don’t care where we get the ball. In fact, I don’t mind getting the ball at the 1 [yard line] because the first thing I say is, ‘Sweet, we get to go 99 [yards].’ So, that’s the mindset of our offense. That’s the confidence we have. Obviously if every day was Christmas, would you love to get the ball inside the red zone? Sweet, that would be awesome. But that’s not football, so our mindset as an offense from a confidence standpoint is, we don’t care where we get the football, it’s our job to go score it.”

(On if they have to reflect on what TE Josh Oliver did during OTAs to trust what he will do if he plays in Week 7 at Cincinnati) “Yeah. And you just have trust in the player you saw in college and the skillset. There’s some unknown there, he hasn’t practiced a lot, and that’s what it is. And you can sugarcoat it and do all of this stuff, but it is what it is. He has not practiced and has not played. But that being said, if I was going to bet on a young man to go in there and perform well it would be Josh [Oliver]. So, I’m not scared to put him in there at all, and I know our coaching staff is not scared to put him in there at all on Sunday if that’s the case.”