JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The day after the Jaguars' season ended in a 20-3 loss to the Houston Texans, Doug Marrone said he was excited to return as head coach in 2019 and that he believes he has the right plan to lead Jacksonville back into contention next season.
Promoting three keys to improvement--availability, coachability and scheme--Marrone said he would continue to self-evaluate to see how he could do a better job, while also hinting that the players must be committed to improving.
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"We talked to them about the improvement we need by time investing from April to December from a weightlifting standpoint, Marrone said. "We showed them that from how we reported in these three tests, how many games were missed by the guys that didn’t perform well in those tests to put in their minds that they have to invest in what they do from now until they report on April 15 because your body in the game of football is a commodity. You have to take care of it.
While some veterans clearly "bought in" during the season, internal leadership in the Jaguars locker room wasn't strong enough to overcome a rash of injuries, underperforming players and a lack of commitment from some key personnel.
"To get a message, you have to accept it, so we have to have everybody to buy in," defensive tackle Abry Jones said. "I don't want to force anyone to buy-in. Either you're with us or you're not. I think Telvin said it best the other day: When you come back, be ready to work and if you don't want to, ask for a trade."
When Marrone talks about availability, it's his way of acknowledging the impact that injuries had on the Jaguars, especially on offense. During the course of the 2018 season, the Jaguars lost four of their five offensive line starters to injury, lost wide receiver Marqise Lee for the year in the preseason and saw top running back Leonard Fournette miss eight games and parts of several others.
"When you take a look at availability and you play less than 30 percent of the snaps, it would be disappointing, as I would hope it would be disappointing to any player that wasn’t able to either play to be available and that hurts because you do put a lot of time in," Marrone said. "These guys do put a lot of time in and the ability to perform, to be out there for your teammates. For me, I’m not as specific as you would like, but I would like to take a step back and take a look at things again. Overall, that’s how I feel about not just Leonard Fournette, but anyone else that hasn’t been available and hasn’t probably performed as well as they would like to. Let me be clear myself, I didn’t perform well at all."
Marrone pointed to some key fitness tests that proved prophetic for players' availability, a way to state the importance of being in shape, a process that begins in April in the off-season practices, even the "voluntary" organized team activities.
"If you want to build a team and you want to be close, and what’s a proven fact is that when you’re working with teammates and you’re competing against them, you’ll perform higher than when you’re not with them. That’s been the case since the beginning," Marrone said. "We talked about 100 percent participation of our players when they come back for phase one, phase two and the OTAs and minicamp that is mandatory."
The point about coachabiliity is a two-way street. While admitting his message wasn't landing as well this year as it did in 2017, Marrone said he would be reviewing the way in which his messages are delivered, while staying true to the principals he believes work in the NFL.
"I think that’s one of the things I’m looking at – I’m obviously hard on myself on [that]," Marrone said. "You see things that happened on the field, you know that you’ve spoken about it and it just doesn’t resonate for whatever reason. You have to be able to communicate. It’s the most important thing to get jobs done, and I obviously didn’t do a good job communicating."
But the players have to be a part of that as well. Several veterans spoke about buy-in as they cleaned out their lockers. That was one component that appeared to be missing from too many players this season.
"I think we all on this team have a lot of maturing do to," defensive end Calais Campbell said. "There's a lot to learn from this year, as a whole. The biggest things is learning from our mistakes and search within ourselves how we can be better pros, better players, better teammates."
All of the defensive players we spoke with confirmed they want defensive coordinator Todd Wash back, but Marrone wasn't ready to talk about staff changes less than 24 hours after learning that he would be back in 2019.
The decision on Wash and the hiring of a new offensive coordinator both go to scheme; however, Marrone won't be the only man with a hand in those decisions. Tom Coughlin, executive vice president of football operations, will also play a role in finding the next man to lead the offense. They'll also likely be in the market for a new quarterback. While no official word has been passed down, Blake Bortles appeared resigned to his fate. The former first-round pick is likely to be let go in the offseason.
Between his demotion and the firing of offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, Bortles said Monday he felt like he was the scapegoat for a season that started with a 3-1 record and finished with the Jaguars losing 10 of their last 12 games.
"I think that's part of the quarterback's job description," Bortles said. "When things don't go well, a lot of it falls on the quarterback's shoulders. Whether it's a scapegoat or whatever you want to call it, somebody has to take the blame when things don't go well. I think Nathaniel was one of those guys. I think I was one of those guys. I think there were other guys on this team who were part of that as well."
The next key dates in the NFL include Jan. 14, the deadline for college underclassmen to declare for the NFL draft, the Senior Bowl on Jan. 26, and March 11, when clubs may begin contacting free agents.