Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - AFC South Offseason Recap - Jacksonville Jaguars: Big Money Moves, Trevor Lawrence & Season Series

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

The Tennessee Titans have dominated the Jacksonville Jaguars over the last few seasons, but the Jags made major moves this offseason to try and end that futility! Tyler begins his breakdown of the Jacksonville Jaguars with their overhaul of an offseason. The hiring of Doug Pederson, spending big money in Free Agency and then a solid draft class. Will it be enough for the Jags to have a "good" season? Tony Wiggins from Locked On Jaguars joins to give his take on the moves made so far and how the Jags might perform in 2022. Finally, Tyler goes over the two matchups between the Titans and the Jaguars and talks about how each game could go!Follow Tyler on Twitter @TicTacTitansFollow the show on Facebook @LockedOnTitansPodSubscribe to the Locked On Titans YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/c/LockedOnTitansSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, on today's show, we are going to cap off our AFC South offseason roundup by discussing the Jacksonville Jaguars. First, I'm going to look at all the transactions and all the moves that the Jags have made throughout the offseason. Then, we're going to transition into an excellent conversation and breakdown with Locked On Jaguars host Tony Wiggins.

You don't want to miss that conversation. Then I will cap off the show talking about the Titans' two matchups against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Both of them are late in the season, which means both of them will be critically important to the Titans' playoff push. We'll discuss all of that and more on today's edition of the Locked On Titans podcast. Let's get it. You are Locked On Titans, your daily Tennessee Titans podcast.

Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Titans fans, we are going to cap off our off-season AFC South roundup on today's show. Earlier in the week, we did the Indianapolis Colts, and that was a great conversation as well. A lot of great insight from the new hosts of Locked On Colts, Zach Hicks and Jake Arthur. Then we talked about the Houston Texans with Cody Davis from Locked On Texans and went over everything that we need to know about our rivals down there in Houston. And today is the Jacksonville Jaguars. So excited to dive in there.

Before we do, got to thank you guys for making the Locked On Titans podcast your first listen every day. If this is your first ever listen to the Locked On Titans podcast, make sure you subscribe on whatever platform you do stream. I am going to be putting out daily Monday through Friday, Tennessee Titans content pretty much all year round with the exception of about three weeks. Like we're in the midst of here in the summer, free and available on all platforms, including the locked on Titans,

YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe over there, smash the notification bell. So you know when the content goes live and throw a thumbs up on the video right now, if you're watching on YouTube, I really do appreciate the support. It goes a long way to help support the channel. But with that all in mind, let's dive into our conversation about the Jacksonville Jaguars. So number one, let me get this, get this hat straight here, baby. Boom. All right. Number one, we got to talk about them getting rid of Urban Meyer. I mean, what a cancer that was on the team last year. Imagine, and me and Tony talk about this, imagine being a rookie quarterback and dealing with all the stuff that comes with being a rookie quarterback,

and then at the same time have to answer questions about your coach's infidelity at a bar after a game in Ohio. I mean, tough sledding there for the Jags organization with Urban Meyer at the helm, but they get rid of Urban Meyer and they bring in Doug Peterson, the former Super Bowl winning coach from the Philadelphia Eagles. Now, I've said this quite a bit throughout the all season. I'm going to continue to say it.

Doug Peterson is not an amazing NFL coach, but talking about coming from Urban Meyer, just regular, run-of-the-mill, solid, average, typical NFL coaching will go a long way for this Jaguars team, especially Trevor Lawrence. So hiring Doug Peterson, a good move. They franchise tag and

then ultimately extend left tackle Cam Robinson. I think that is a bit of a curious move. But again, when you're trying to right the ship, you don't want to try to do that without a left tackle. And they got some young guys in there, Walker Little, I believe, who could potentially fight for a spot, but I don't think they feel too confident in that.

So they bring back Cam Robinson at left tackle. They caught Miles Jack, who's a guy who's been a solid player for them for quite some time, had fallen off in recent years. Not surprised to see that. But the big news for the Jags in the offseason is clearly free agency. They bring in left guard Brandon Scherf. They bring in wide receiver Christian Kirk at $21 million per season, which really was the first sign that this wide receiver market

is going to be completely out of control. They bring in Fuyasada Luokan at linebacker from Atlanta. He's a very solid linebacker. They brought in Fala Futakasi at defensive tackle. Darius Williams at cornerback. Evan Ingram at tight end, wide receiver, whatever you want to consider him, Zay Jones at wide receiver, Arden Key at edge.

I mean, as always, the Jacksonville Jaguars were off-season players and free agency players. It feels like every year we see the Jags go out and spend a bunch of money in free agency is because they don't draft and develop very well. So the only way they can feel like they can field a good roster is to go out and spend a bunch of money in free agency, which they did again.

And oftentimes, the offseason winners are not the real winners in the season. Now, I don't hate all the moves that the Jags made, but from the money they spend, I don't see names on the list that make me feel like they've improved the team a significant amount. So I don't know about all that money being spent. We'll see how it works out, of course. Could be wrong about that. But like I said, typically the Jags spend a bunch of money in the offseason,

and it doesn't typically end up with a lot of wins. But their draft class, I think, was pretty solid, though. Trevon Walker at number one totally fits the mold of what a guy like Trent Baalke is looking for in a player. Length, athleticism, upside, high-end potential. Now, they passed on Aiden Hutchinson, who is considered the lock number one leading up to the draft. So, they'll always be pitted against each other to see how that pick worked out.

But I don't mind. I don't mind, really. I guess I don't think Aiden Hutchinson is so amazing that you can't take the chance on Trevon Walker. But Devin Lloyd at linebacker. Luke Fortner at center. Chad Mumma at linebacker.

Snoop Conner at running back. I mean, I love those picks. I love that draft call right there. I think that's very, very solid. Now, off-ball linebacker twice. Interior offensive line. I get there's running back. There's not a ton of positional value.

They're the high-end position. But Jacksonville spent a lot of money on high-end positions. And they got some good guys like Josh Allen. I mean, they're good at some of the spots. So, I like the draft class. I like it overall. Now, will all of this that we've just discussed be good enough to make the Jags a competitive football team next year?

We will see. And someone who has some thoughts on that is Tony Wiggins from Locked on Jags. I'm going to be bringing him on in just a second. But before we do, I want to tell you guys this episode is brought to you by rockauto.com. rockauto.com is an online company that's been helping do-it-yourselfers for over 20 years. They have everything you could ever want for your vehicle, and their easy-to-navigate online catalog shows you all the different brands, specifications, and prices that you prefer.

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so they know that I sent you. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need, rockauto.com. As always, my favorite conversations on the Locked On Podcast Network come from my guy, Tony Wiggins, from Locked On Jags, the OG of the Locked On Network, as I like to say. You won't find anybody out there, at least that I know, that has anything bad to say about Tony. He does a great job covering the Jags.

He's been on the ground down there in Jacksonville, inside the organization, covering the team for so long. You're going to get great info here, so I'm excited to dive into this conversation. Tony, thanks for coming on. My first question for you is, the Jags went out and they got rid of the cancer that was Urban Meyer that I know you were never a huge fan of anyway, and they bring in Doug Peterson, a Super Bowl-winning coach, obviously had a fallout in Philly, but my personal opinion, before you give yours, is that Doug Peterson is at least a professional football coach, and I think that'll be huge for Jacksonville.

What were your initial thoughts on his hiring, and based on what you've seen so far and what you're hearing, do you think he was the right guy to get the Jags back to good? I like it. I always liked it. It comes with a caveat, though. There was so much talk about Byron Leftwich. And the talk about Byron Leftwich included bringing in possibly Adrian Wilson,

the former player who's also one of the assistants. Yeah, and he's one of the assistants out in Arizona. So that meant probably jettisoning Trent Balky, which everyone was on board with at that time. So the base was a little bit torn. The memory of Byron Leftowitz winning a championship with Tom Brady and hearing the way Bruce Arians as well as Tom Brady spoke about Byron Lefkowitz, it kind of killed a feel-good story of a guy who was picked,

I believe seventh overall here, who did not really live up to that, but who's gone on to really make a good name for himself in coaching. And they would have gotten rid of the GM that everybody wanted to get rid of. So from that perspective, it was a little bit of a downer. But if you look at Doug Peterson himself, he wasn't a downer because we saw him do something that you want your coaches to do, and that is win a championship. But he won his belichick and brady and and he did it by taking a team that was desperate to win because they had never really won anything for a rabbit fan base and under a lot of pressure and he did with a backup quarterback there are a lot of

check marks that you can check off about doug peterson that kind of fit with what the jaguars really needed yeah i i mean i i agree you. He did check a lot of boxes, and I just think just average NFL professional level coaching. I think this team has talent. I really do. I'm higher on the Jaguars than maybe some. I see not a winning season, but definitely a better season than last year. Do you think the offseason that they've had so far is good enough to do that?

Yeah, they overcame a lot of stuff. They overcame this thought that Balky was never going to be able to get it done. And by having him continue on was just sort of a continuation of more of the same. Shotgun had never really made a clean break from anything negative or anything that did not work. It was always some little bit of a carryover from administration to administration. The other thing that they had to overcome was just this Murphy's Law feeling of the franchise that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Right. And it goes against one of the things that I firmly believe. believe. Unless you think that there's something wrong with the air, the dirt, the sand, the atmosphere, or the water that you drink every day in Jacksonville, Florida, you'd have to be pretty

shallow to not realize that eventually when you change the people that run the organization and you have a change of attitude, that there will be a change of results. We can go, I'm old enough, you call me OG, I'm old enough. You call me, OG. I'm old enough to go back to remember when the New England Patriots were absolutely terrible. Most people don't remember that. And they don't remember that for 20 years of my childhood and adolescence, I never thought the Patriots was going to be any good. And I can say the same thing too about the Seahawks and the Bucks but eventually football is won by people who play the game and those who make the decisions not the uniforms that are on the

back or the atmosphere that they breathe in a certain climate yeah no you're 100% right about that it's kind of funny actually it reminds me of when people say like the historical record between two teams I'm from Ohio Ohio, Ohio State, Michigan. People argue about the record. What do games in the 1940s have to do with games in 2022? They simply don't. So I'm with you there. And it's funny, too. You mentioned the Patriots being bad.

I have to give an admission. I'm 31. I was born in 1991. My first real football memory is the Super Bowl Green Bay Packers against the New England Patriots. And basically since that moment, the Patriots have been really good. So I don't really remember the Patriots. I know they were, but yeah, I wasn't alive to see any of that. So you're again, spot on with all that. My next question I got to ask about Trevor Lawrence. If the Jags do take the next step and kind of flip things around from last year,

it's going to be because Lawrence took that next step as a good player with a better roster around him. What's the feeling around Trevor Lawrence so far in the offseason? The feeling around Trevor Lawrence is he finally gets to do what a rookie quarterback should have been able to do, and that's just focus on football. Be insulated by a coaching staff that's going to make you focus on football, football only, learn the muscle memory, learn the league,

learn the differences between a wide open receiver in college as opposed to a wide open receiver in the NFL and when to pull the trigger. And then he doesn't have to be what I call a press secretary. Last year under Urban Meyer, the enthusiasm for Trevor Lawrence was so high with the fan base that anytime anything went wrong from a PR perspective, Trevor was the one standing behind the microphone to discuss it. And in a great situation, right, in a better situation, that guy is never behind the microphone talking about anything other than his progression his teammates and football because uh this the the base was so starved at some point to have what they call a

franchise quarterback that there were many people whether it be tongue-in-cheek or not that thought don't screw this up just draft trevor and get out of the way well any team that's ever had a franchise quarterback that won anything knows that that's not what you do. You don't treat it like a lottery ticket. You treat it like a long-term investment. You coddle it. You insulate it. That is your hard-earned money.

And really, this was hard-earned. You got your butt beat for the majority of two decades to get to this point. And now when you get it, you have to nurture it. And that's what they've done. When you think about Doug Peterson, Mike McCoyoy, Pres Taylor and Jim Bob Cooter that's a lot of years in the NFL of being either being a quarterback or coaching a quarterback so now I think you'll see the progression made that he needs to make because he'll have only football to think about and nothing else. Yeah I mean obviously as a Titan supporter you don't want to see the Jags do well and and get that franchise

quarterback and all that. But I got to say, you know, you got a rookie quarterback out there playing for a franchise that's had a lot of trouble. And one of the things he has to worry about is answering questions of why his head coach is partying with young girls and stuff like that. I mean, just an absolute disaster of a situation for Lawrence. And again, I don't want to see the Jags prosper too much here, but I do feel good for Trevor that he gets a real shot to just be a football player.

As you described, if he's able to get that opportunity, which he's getting now, he should play a lot better. And with what the Jags have done around him, what do you see as kind of a realistic, positive expectation for the Jaguars what would be a I guess a good season in your mind one where they don't come out of the tunnel and you hope and wish that they're competitive well you actually legitimately believe that they're going to have a chance every week and I think that that's what they're going to have because of Doug Peterson his resume of being able to basically make, I wouldn't necessarily say lemonade out of onions because that's not really what he did in Philly.

But when you consider the enormity of what he did in the Super Bowl with a backup quarterback against who he was going against, that's pretty awesome. So that shows me a guy who's not too, he doesn't shrink in the moment. And he doesn't have to have all of the advantages to be competitive because he obviously won't have to have all of the advantages to be competitive because he obviously won't have those advantages. I think what happens is with him, you get the sense that the players,

not just the fans, but the players will have the feeling that they can come out of that tunnel and compete every single week. Now the demonstrated performance every week is going to determine whether or not they do the little things like get off the field on third down, make good plays on special teams, make big plays when you need to, and make the regular play when you have to, and not have stupid penalties. All those things have to happen in order for them to actually win the game. But I would not be surprised if in 15 out of their 17 games,

they're within one score with 10 minutes to go in the fourth period. Yeah, yeah, I think they have the potential to be a competitive team like that, you know, midway through the year, chance to make the playoffs. I don't know if they're quite to that level yet because Lawrence has to, you know, make more steps. He's basically a rookie in my eyes this year, again, all over again because of last year. But as I said at the beginning, I'm a little bit higher on the Jags than your average bear would be.

So it'll be exciting to, to see what happens this year and two late season games with the Titans and the Jags. So if the Jags are competitive, those could be some very, very important matchups in that week 18 at Jacksonville, potential flex. If Jacksonville is in the is in the conversation at all, that could be a flex game and be a very fun one to watch.

If you guys need to win, it's a potential flex because of the rivalry aspect. Right. And if Jacksonville has been respectable, I think it's a game that will get flexed anyway. Yeah. Yeah, it should be a good one. Well, Tony, as always, thank you so much for coming on. Our conversations are always great,

and I know that the listeners always enjoy them. We're going to move forward. I'm going to give my prediction as to what's going to happen in those two matchups between the Titans and the Jags to cap off our show. Before we get into that, I do want to tell you guys about BetOnline.net, your number one source for all your betting needs and sports info.

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We talked to Tony about his views on the team and what he's seeing and hearing. Now I want to spin that forward, like I said, to the two games the Titans play against the Jags this year. And I got a feeling that they're going to be pretty important games, as me and Tony just talked about. Before we get into that, though, I do want to thank you guys again for making the Locked On Titans podcast your first listen every day. Make sure you subscribe on whatever platform you do stream. But as for

your second listen, check out the Locked On NFL podcast. It's Monday through Friday, free and available on all platforms as well, including the Locked On NFL YouTube channel. I actually host the Thursday show, but what you're going to get is under 30 minutes, Monday through Friday, all the latest NFL news and conversation. So it's a great thing to pair with the Locked On Titans podcast.

You get all your Titans news in under 30 minutes here with me. Then you get all your NFL news in under 30 minutes with the Locked On NFL podcast. So make sure that you guys check that out. And again, I am the Thursday host, so any support you minutes with the Locked On NFL podcast. So make sure that you guys check that out. And again, I am the Thursday host. So any support you show to the Locked On NFL podcast is also support shown to me. So I appreciate that. But let's talk about these matchups and what I think will happen. Number one, week 14 at home against Jacksonville.

It is a must win for the Titans. Think, the games before that. Casey, Denver, Green Bay, Cincy, Philly. I mean, I continue to say what a tough stretch of games that is. Now, last year in the tough stretch of games that the Titans played, they went undefeated. They beat the Colts, the Chiefs, the Bills, the Rams, the Saints. I mean, unbelievable.

Unbelievable. I identified the toughest stretch last year, and the Titans went 5-0. Well, if they can do that in this stretch, boy, are they cooking. Because that is a tough, tough stretch. At KC, home for Denver. At Green Bay, home for Cincy.

At Philly. With prime time in there with Green Bay, I mean, those are tough games against good football teams. Yeah, Philly isn't quite on the level of those other four, but they, I mean, they added A.J. Brown. They added a lot of pieces. They could be. I wouldn't be shocked if Philly won the NFC East.

So, that's a tough game. And then, after the Week 14 game against Jacksonville at home, they have to fly across the country for their longest trip of the year to Los Angeles and play the Chargers who we suspect will be a very good team as well. Boy. That game, out of those you got the five, Casey, Denver, Green Bay, Cincy, Philly

and then you got the Jacksonville game and then the Charger game that seven game stretch right there if the Titans don't win that Jacksonville game at home, they are in trouble. No way around it. They are in trouble that late in the season. That's a must win. And I think the Titans do win that game.

I think the Titans do win that game. But spinning forward, Week 18 at Jacksonville, just a little scary. Just a little scary. Week 18 at Jacksonville. Just a little scary. Just a little scary. One, I think Jacksonville is going to be a lot better this year. When I say a lot better, they won three games last year.

So, I think this year they win six, seven games. That's what I'm expecting. So, with an improved Jacksonville, at home, a team who's used to playing spoiler in the last week of the season, I'm worried. Now, here's the season. I'm worried. Now, here's the optimism. The Titans have a Thursday night football game in week 17 against the Cowboys.

So, they'll have 10 days of rest to get... I have the hiccups. Great. Way to finish out the week. They're gonna have 10 days of rest and preparation

before they play this game. So, I considered saying there's probably gonna be a split. But, with the extra days of rest and preparation, I think the Titans find a way to win both games. If they lose one of those games, they aren't winning the division.

It comes down to that period. So, again, like we talked about with Houston, the Titans, because they play in the AFC South and it's one of the lesser divisions, they have to win both their games against Houston and both their games against Jacksonville. They have to. They simply have to.

So, that's a must win. Both of them are probably a must win. The only scenario that I can think of is if the Titans have the division wrapped up by week 17 after the Dallas game on Thursday night. And then they sit their starters against Jacksonville and they lose, but it doesn't matter. So let's hope for that as well.

But that's going to do it for our AFC South all-season recap. It's going to do it for my hicc that as well. But that's going to do it for our AFC South all season recap. It's going to do it for my hiccups as well. Lord really put me in a headlock right now, as you guys can tell. But anyways, guys, a great week of the AFC South roundup. I'll be back with you guys next week.

Getting closer and closer to training camp. We're getting closer and closer to July. So can't wait for the football. You can smell it. That's going to do it for me today, though, folks. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans. you