JAGUARS HEAD COACH DOUG MARRONE
(On an injury update on DE Josh Allen) “He had a good day this morning, so I’m really thinking that he’s trending on being able to play this week.”
(On if he’s happy with the play of DE Josh Allen so far this season) “Yeah, I mean Josh [Allen] does a good job. [He] comes with a ton of energy, comes every day, works hard. Yes, I’ve been pleased.”
(On if he’s putting his players in the best positions to succeed, including DE/LB K’Lavon Chaisson) “Yeah, well I mean that’s what obviously our goal is, that’s what we’re trying to get accomplished. It’s hard to sit here and defend a lot of that stuff when you’re not winning football games, so I think we’re looking to put guys in the best position we can that not only helps them individually in their performance, but in the whole grand scheme of what we’re trying to get accomplished. I think that [with] K’Lavon [Chaisson], I have a ton of respect for him. I think he’s getting great experience right now as a rusher. I think it’s something that sometimes you take for granted with a lot of these players when they come into the league. I think that he’s learning a ton each game and how to set up people, learning plans, so I think he’s going to continue to get better. I think when it hits, it’s going to hit pretty good for him, meaning that when that switch kind of goes off. But this is some of the things that go on when you have young players in that position, so we felt we’d get the most out of him being just in the defensive end, working on that, and then gradually, if that role expands, then to expand it, but we wanted to get that done first because that was a high priority for us to try to get rush.”
(On if not having practice squad players available until Thursday affects preparation) “I think there’s a couple things. I think, one, everything is virtual and then obviously the practice squad players won’t be here on Wednesday. My thought process is go through, we’ll kind of split practice up a little bit, meaning where we’re going to be able to get work done like a normal Wednesday and there’ll be a time when it comes down to the team period to kind of back off because if not, then we’d have our team servicing each other and I just want to make sure we’re fresh and we’re ready to go. And then Thursday, it’ll be a normal practice, Friday a normal practice. So, I think that the day that we’ll have a practice adjustment is obviously the day where we’re missing those players.”
(On an injury update on K Josh Lambo) “He’s going to kick during the week, so we’re going to see where he is then. I’ll have a better update idea once he goes out there. We’re talking about either Wednesday or Thursday of putting him out there and seeing how he feels.”
(On if he feels like the offense is regressing) “I think it’s obviously a matter of things that we have to do differently. I think that when it comes to matchups, I don’t think we played well on both sides of the ball upfront. I think whenever you do that, there’s going to be a lot of situations that happen. Really, [when] I look at it, it’s difficult to go back and reflect like three, four weeks ago. You’re kind of just dealing [with] it in what you’re seeing right now and so my focus is on, ‘Okay we played a team. They played us a little bit differently. Here was the outcome. We didn’t perform up to standards, all of us. How can we do a better job putting the players [in the right place], kind of like how Demetrius was talking about how we put them in better position so that they can make plays.’ That’s our job and when the time comes up in the course of a game, make plays. I think when I looked at it, these key points in the game where we need to make plays, we haven’t. I understand a lot when it’s, I guess, the analytics are against you, meaning like down and distance and everything, but there’s times where down and distance is on our side and we’re not able to come up with the play. Offensively, it’s the same way too where we’re getting what we want, we’re getting the look we want, we just can’t make that play. So, that goes back to the same thing, just trying to make those plays at the right time and making sure that we’re putting them in a position to do that and that’s what we’re all working for.”
(On if a personnel change is needed) “ I think when you’re going through something that we’re going through and it’s difficult, it’s with a young football team, I think it’s very natural to have people that are going to… not place blame, not that anyone’s looking to say, ‘Hey, it’s this person’s fault’, but everyone’s really trying to figure out how can this team get better and you appreciate that. And then I think that’s what happens when I get a lot of these questions like, ‘Hey, are you going to do this? Are you going to do that?’ My past has shown that I’ve done that everywhere I’ve been as a head coach and when that stuff is warranted, I feel very comfortable making that decision wherever it may be. But this one is not [like that], this one is really all of us that we all have to do a better job and we all have to dig ourselves out of this because it’s never as easy as what some people think. It’d be easy if it was one thing, but it’s not. We have to do better at all of it, so that’s how I feel.”
(On what contributes to the slow starts of the games so far this season) “Yeah, I agree with you. It’s something that you try to as a coach to try to get plays in, things are comfortable. You go out there and then, I don’t want to say it’s youth. I’m going to go back to the same thing, not that I’m relying on it, is to say that we all have to find a better way. I really think that sometimes when it’s early in the game and you’ve seen it against us, we go out there and we run the ball, we get -1 [yards] and then we get 0 [yards], then we go ahead and dump it off and then we’re punting. Good plays by them, not executed as well by us. Then you look at the first drive and it’s third down, we jump offsides, a third-and-long, we give up a scramble, and all of a sudden you just had two opportunities to get them off the field and go. I think there’s a lot that people look at as far as how do you get them ready to go. I mean we’re doing everything we can, tried a couple different things: taking the ball, not taking the ball, putting different groups out on the field. But at the end of the day, I still come back to the same thing. We’re going to have to do a good job of putting people in position and someone’s going to have to step up and make a stop or someone’s going to have to step up and make a play for us to be successful as far as how we start games. But you’re right, it’s obviously something we’re not doing well and it’s a major concern.”
(On if they will leave on Saturday for this week’s game at the Chargers) “Yes, we will leave on Saturday.”
(On what contributed to the poor run game against the Lions and if OL A.J. Cann’s injury contributed to that) “I mean obviously it’s a factor. I’m not going to deny that, but I’m not going to put [it all on that]. I thought Ben [Bartch] stepped in there and there’s some things that he did well and some things he didn’t, and I think that’s normal for a young guy to step in there. At the end of the day, I think I started this when I said before, I don’t think we did a good job upfront on either side of the ball. I thought that they got the best of us and I give them credit. We did not play as well on either side and there was some good individual play at times, but it wasn’t consistent enough. But we didn’t play well enough because you think about when you run the football, everyone’s talking about how great of a job the offensive line did and when you don’t run the football, then obviously the people that are involved in that didn’t play as well. I think that’s what happened yesterday. Those guys didn’t play as well, and Detroit got the better of us.”
(On if teams are daring QB Gardner Minshew II to beat them from the pocket when they take away the run game) “I think that there’s a couple things that go into it. I think this is something that I want to make sure I answer the right way, meaning that everyone goes into a game saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to take away the run.’ I’ve been in this for like 20 years or however long I’ve been coaching. Even though I’ve been a head coach for 10 and an offensive coach the rest of the time, that’s what I’ve always heard from defensive coaches, so everyone tries to do that and then really try to force you to make plays and force you to protect. Until you start making those plays, that’s how any team, I really believe, is going to be able to play you and that’s one of the things we have to do a better job of. Not to say that if people stack the box that you’re not able to run the ball because there were times where we just had gotten beat physically. So, schematically it’s a little bit different when you look at it and it’s probably not as schematic now because the quarterback always has the ability to run the football, [more] than it was maybe 10 years ago or seven years ago, whatever it is. So, I think each week everyone’s going to have a game plan on what they want to do and what they want to take away and try to force their hand or dictate what they do, and that’s what you don’t want to do in this game. In other words, you can see when teams play, at least I can and I’m sure you guys can, when teams [are] going out there and doing what they want to do, they’re kind of dictating the tempo and dictating the flow of the game. And you see other teams that when all of a sudden something’s not working or [they] become one-dimensional, [they] will struggle at times until they can start making those plays to get the momentum shifted. For us, we just didn’t do enough in running the football to probably help us open up some of the things on the backend and then on the backend, when we did it, we probably weren’t as accurate probably as we could be at some points.”
(On if the receivers were open in yesterday’s game as WR DJ Chark Jr. said and if QB Gardner Minshew II wasn’t seeing them) “A lot of it again, it goes back to the same thing. I think that when you’re losing, and this is not on DJ [Chark Jr.], it’s more of people are saying things that, ‘Hey listen, we’re open or we can run it or we can do this or we can do that’ and I understand that, I definitely do. It’s like everything, there’s a balance in that so yeah, there were times that they were open and maybe we couldn’t get to the read because we were forced out of the pocket. There were times where we may have been covered. There were times where we didn’t throw the ball accurately to get it. So, I think there’s always a lot that goes into that and I try to take it with a balance. I don’t really look into, ‘Hey listen, we’re open all the time’, we just can’t get you the football. I don’t think it’s that. I think there’s a lot of things that go into it with the reads and where he is in the pocket and getting forced out of the pocket, which he did a couple times yesterday, so it’s difficult.”
