Jacksonville Jaguars Sunday, October 6, 2019
Head coach Doug Marrone Jacksonville Jaguars
RE: Game summary
Credit Carolina, they did a good job. We came into the game thinking that we wanted to stop Christian McCaffrey and control him. Obviously, he had a really good day and that hurt us. And then we wanted to make sure we won the turnover battle and we lost 3-0 in the turnover battle. You can’t do that. With all that going on and falling behind early, I thought the guys were resilient, they kept going even though we gave up big runs or we didn’t score, we were able to get back and had a chance to get back in the game and had a chance to win the game. But their attitude, the way they’re going about their business, the team – that stuff is good. We’ve got to coach better, we’ve got to play better – on the performance end of it – and put our guys in a better position. When you give up that much rushing and when you’re minus three in turnovers, you’re not going to win football games. That’s basically what it comes down to.
RE: The big plays given up on defense
I think it’s a couple things. Two things that we talked about were missed tackles and getting knocked out of our gaps. Credit to (Carolina), they did a good job. That can’t happen. When people have those big runs, those are things that occur and that’s what happened to us and, again, we wanted to make sure we didn’t give up any explosive plays and we were trying to make sure that we handled the run and we didn’t do a good job. At the end of the day, all of us – me, coaches, players – none of us did a good job with that.
RE: DJ Chark’s performance
I think I saw the same thing I’ve seen all year: a guy that can make plays. He’s playing at a high confidence level. We’re getting a lot out of him, he’s really doing well and he’s making plays for us and as long as he’s doing that, it’s going to give us a chance. I’m very happy with him.
RE: Gardner Minshew’s performance on the final drive
You feel like you always have a chance when he’s in there. You feel like he’s going to go ahead and he’s going to make a play. I think sometimes you see him running around and moving around and ducking and going and eventually, that stuff – in this league – is going to catch up to you where they’re going to knock the ball out. Sometimes you’re going to make plays, sometimes you’re not. We just appreciate that the guy’s out there giving us everything he has and that’s all you can ask for from a player. There are a lot of players out there that are giving us all they have and we’ve just got to do a better job of coaching and performing.
RE: The linebacker play on the long runs. We got knocked out of our gap and when you get knocked out of your gap, when no one’s in there, it’s going to go right to the secondary. And that’s what happened: we got knocked out of our gap or we weren’t in our gap. When you do that in this league against good running backs, they’re going to find it.
RE: Quincy Williams (LB)
We just wanted to get some better fits in there, better run fits. There are a lot of things that happen but we wanted to put Najee (Goode) in there because we thought we would get better run fits out of him and some other things that we wanted to get accomplished that we weren’t getting done. But we still believe in him and love him and all that.
RE: The offensive line improving throughout the game
Yeah, I thought coming into the game Carolina was a really good team rushing the passer, I thought they were really stout against the run. I think early on we could’ve gotten on blocks a little bit quicker. I wish we would’ve done a better job early on of creating the third downs but I thought they fought extremely hard. When they’re communicating on the sidelines and they’re telling you what’s going on and things of that nature, then you’ve got a chance. Like I said, can’t say anything about the effort, can’t say anything about the fight. I’ve just got to do a better job with the coaches and we’ve got to perform better. I don’t want to go too deep; I’m sure we could sit here all day and go through a lot of things that we can improve on but at the end of the day, you can’t give up that many yards rushing and you can’t turn the ball over three times. I hate to sound so simple but that’s as simple as it is.
Quarterback Gardner Minshew II Jacksonville Jaguars
RE: Difficulty with turnovers but still having a chance at the very end to tie it up
Played well for the most part, but had three turnovers. Those are all on me, that can’t happen. When stuff like that happens, sometimes you don’t give yourself a chance to win. That’s what I feel like we did, what I did.
RE: There is that belief at the end of the game with you under center that things can still go your way. Talk a little bit about your positivity
It’s just the belief in one another. Knowing the guys in that huddle, that as long as there is time on the clock, we are going to keep fighting. We are going to give all we got, because we know the guy next to us is, and you’re not going to let him down. As long as there is any chance, that is what we are going to do.
RE: Effort by DJ Chark
He is playing so good, making so many big plays. He probably should have had another touchdown on the one. He is playing with a lot of confidence. I trust him, I am going to give him every opportunity to make plays.
RE: Running backs taking so long to get going today
They are a good defense. It’s not easy to do. You can’t just run out, draw up plays and say oh it’s going to work every time. But we had a lot of persistence by our offensive line, they grinded it out. Leonard (Fournette) kept going, it got frustrating but he stayed positive and we worked through it.
Running Back Leonard Fournette
RE: Disappointment after losing today’s game
We came in here after the game and I called the team up, made sure nobody held their head down. We fought the whole game. No matter the mistakes we made, we could have capitalized on most of all of those things. We came back and fought. Can’t expect any more for this team.
RE: Jacksonville’s 2-3 record
As team I think we are fighting right now. As a team as a whole, nobody is giving up. Like I told the team, our third week in a row, I have seen a fight out of everybody. Despite the mistakes, that’s going to happen in game, it’s all about bouncing back.
RE: Today’s struggles to get the running game going
It’s over with now, we have to go on to the next. The run game is going to take care of itself. The biggest part right now is about winning. Nobody is worried about the individual things. As you see the game wasn’t going our way in the running game but a lot of the big blocks we made helped our pass game get down the field.
RE: Christian McCaffrey
He is amazing, can’t expect any more from him.
RE: Coming back from early deficits in back-to-back weeks
I think it’s more about the will power at the end of the day. Despite not moving the ball at first but it’s all about communicating with the team and just believing all the hard work we put in it. When the second half came, we were moving the ball fine.
Wide Receiver DJ Chark Jr. Jacksonville Jaguars
RE: The team’s feeling on the final drive
I feel like once we get our stride going and we’re feeling it, nobody is going to stop us. We got down pretty early and there are some things that the offense has to work on but there’s never been a point this season – and we lost two games – there’s never been a point in any of those games where anyone has given up and that’s huge.
RE: Whether he’s surprised by how well he’s played so far
I just come in and work. I’ve got receivers around me that help me every day. I thank Chris (Conley), I thank (Keelan Cole) because he’s always there for me. But like I said, these guys have never given up on me even last year when the outside had comments, the guys in this locker room never doubted me. I wouldn’t say surprised.
RE: Team mentality being down two touchdowns
You know if you’re down two touchdowns, you need to score two and a half or get a field goal or something. You’ve just got to get more points than them. We get on the field and we compete and we try to go get it. We came up short today but we’re going to keep it going and keep competing.
Defensive end Yannick Ngakoue Jacksonville Jaguars
RE: What happened in the run game
From what I’ve seen, just a couple misfits. Just a couple things that we can do, we do it every day in practice and we’ve just got to go back to the drawing board, watch the film and see what we can do better. Just try to bring that same juice next week to New Orleans.
RE: Feeling that they were in control despite the score
Yeah, that’s how we felt the whole time and it goes back to the misfits. If we could’ve just got a couple more fits and a couple more three-and-outs, we could’ve put our offense in a better position. As a defense, we’re going to work to get that better.
RE: Playing with an offense that is performing at a high level
As a defender, it feels good. But at the end of the day, we still lost. At the end of the day, I wish we could’ve won the game. But like you said, our offense is playing really good football and our defense is playing really good football, and there are just a couple little minor details that we messed up on.
