Jacksonville Jaguars: The week in quotes (2024)

The Super Bowl may have come and gone - without the Jacksonville Jaguars - but football never really ends. Here are the main soundbites from the past seven days:

“It’s a viable option to be considered”

Okay. Let’s start off with a little bit of stadium talk. David Bauerlein of the Times-Union dove into a suggestion this week that one way of funding the Jaguars’ renovation of EverBank Stadium could be to ‘borrow’ money from the city’s multi-billion dollar pension fund. This would of course, be subject to the team and the city reaching a deal, and the money would be repaid at a commensurate interest rate over time. How the municipality and the franchise split that cost is yet to be determined - and the idea remains just that - an idea - for now. Still, Mike Weinstein, who is leading negotiations for the city, said it could be beneficial to all:

“So it’s basically moving money around within the same family, and it’s in the city’s best interest to get the pension fully funded as quickly as possible, and it’s in the pension’s best interest to get a guarantee over the long haul of the returns that they want. It’s just a viable option to be considered.”

With Mayor Donna Deegan hopeful of having the framework of a deal set by May, we should see some concrete progress on this front very soon.

“It would be great to play with Tee”

Yes. As we all know, the Jaguars weren’t able to make it all the way to the Super Bowl this year. In fact, most of Duval County would probably have been happy with a playoff game or two. But I digress…

One person who did make it to Las Vegas was quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Speaking on Radio Row ahead of the Kansas City Chiefs’ 25-22 win over the San Francisco 49ers, Lawrence was asked about the possibility of playing with Tee Higgins next year. Higgins is currently set to be a free agent after starting his career with the Cincinnati Bengals, but before that did play with Lawrence as they led the Clemson Tigers to a National Championship. Lawrence was diplomatic, but excited about the proposition:

“I would be very surprised if Cincinnati lets him go. I don’t think that’s going to happen. But if there was an opportunity, it would be great to play with Tee. You know, we’ve texted a little bit back and forth. And the league is funny. You just never know how things are going to work out. So many factors are at play. But of course that’s a guy that I played with that we have a great chemistry. Great player. I would not be upset at all if he came to Jacksonville.”

Time to start working that salary cap magic, Mr. Baalke.

“You want to be around good people”

New defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen took to the podium on Thursday to meet the press for the first time since he arrived at Jacksonville. Gus Logue has broken down the full presser here for you, so I’ll just steal a couple of headline quotes for this week’s column. Firstly - what it was about the Jaguars that made it an attractive destination for his highly sought after services:

“A lot of things. Really, when you start looking at an opportunity, you look at the people in the building. You look at the head coach. I did not know him personally before this, but you do your research. You talk to people that have worked with him and know him. I was fortunate to be on a staff that had a coach that had worked for Coach Pederson before. He said some unbelievable things about him. Then, you start calling around, just a couple of guys. You want to check and it’s so important that you work with good people and we’re so close in this thing. We spend so many hours a day away from our families with these men in here. You want to be around good people.”

“That was the first thing. Then, Trent [Baalke], you hear the same things. You start working your way down, Mr. Khan, the owner, what’s the organization about? How is the owner? I didn’t know that they built the facility. Then, you start doing the roster research and you know a little bit. But then, as you start digging into this thing, you’re like, ‘you know what? This is a great place. This is a place we want to bring our family to and be a part of. This is a place we want to help take the next step.’ When we looked at the whole package and everything that was going on, there was no doubt this is where we wanted to be.”

Ryan Nielsen shook the hand of every journalist in the room before his press conference, then kicks off with an answer like that. The new DC is determined to make friends in his new home town.

“The Jaguars need to add at least four impact contributors”

Perry Knotts/Getty Images

In a quiet week, I’m going to sandwich a dose of John Shipley between the Ryan Nielsen introductory presser. The Jaguars savant knows a thing or two when it comes to the makeup of the current roster, and in his recent mailbag attempted to answer some questions from his followers on Twitter.

One of the more interesting topics Shipley addressed was what the team needs to do - at a bare minimum - to bounce back from a down season and get back to where they were this time last year. Shipley pulled no punches - he wants to see talent come through the door:

“I think part of it is obviously improving internally. Less turnovers and mistake-prone play from the offense, keeping key pieces like Calvin Ridley and Josh Allen, having Ridley take a step in his second year in the system. Those types of things. I do think the Jaguars need to add at least four impact contributors in free-agency and the draft, however. That doesn’t mean three starters who put up crazy numbers, but they need at least one more impactful player on each side of the ball. That can be an Arden Key-level player if need be. And at least two of those players should be rookies after the last two years have produced minimal players to build the future around.”

Considering the big decisions to be made regarding the salary cap, adding talent in that volume may prove to be tricky.

“We’ve got a talented group”

Back to the Nielsen presser to finish things off. One final nugget I thought worthy of re-telling was how keen the new defensive coordinator was to work with the talent already in the building. Nielsen comes with a reputation of making people better, and whilst the unit disappointed in spots in 2022, there are definite key ingredients for success on this unit. It appears their new boss agreed:

“I think they were talented. We’ve got a talented group. We’ve got some really good players and that’s what was exciting and attracted us to the job here. Talent only gets you so far, so we’re really excited to get to work with these guys. They seem very eager, you try to reach out with introductions, just hello and how are you doing, introduce yourself and things like that and the staff. The guys seem very eager and to get going. Obviously, the season just ended and we need a break. We’re just getting going here staff wise, so this is a good time. It is a really good time to start building relationships, which is really huge in what we do. It’s about relationships and people. This is a great time that a couple of these guys are coming up, hey coach, introduce them and put a face with a name and things like that. It’s been very positive.”

2024 starts right now.