Pete Prisco on Jaguars Improvement at 2024 Owners Meetings | The O-Zone Podcast

Published Mar 25, 2024, 9:42 PM
Pete Prisco of CBS Sports joins John Oehser to give an assessment of 2024 free agency moves, lays out some draft needs and potential scenarios ahead for the Jaguars to get to the next level.

Welcome to the Ozone Podcast with Jaguars senior writer John Oser. All Right, welcome into this week's Ozone podcast. I am, of course, John Hosier, and I'm joined by a very familiar face and name the Jaguars fans, Pete Prisco Cbs. And we're here at the NFL Owners meeting. What number of owners meeting is this for you? I know you can count your combine the owner's meetings goes back even further because you were doing it. Oh it does when you're covering expansion.

Let's see, I probably started going to the owners meetings.

And and you spent six years to standing around lobbies waiting for every everyone.

And it wasn't just this one. We went to the spring one, and there was a fall one. We had to go to that one too, So it was three per year. And it was yeah, so fifteen probably leading into the teams, maybe eighteen leading into the team getting there, and then one a year after.

Did you ever imagine in a million years, because you don't think this way, that when you're standing in those hallways, you'd be talking about the Jaguars maybe having a second stadium.

Like you know, that should have happened a long time, right, But.

It's been that long You've now seen a generation, because really age in the NFL is now like how many what stadium is a team on? And now are you're that far into it getting ready to retire?

Not just that the generation of fans is sure, Yeah, they've changed. Don't retire me. I'm not retiring.

I said we, Oh, we're not retiring. I may retire for you to you.

Probably will because I'm one of those guys that if I retire, I think I croak.

What are you gonna do? So well? And here we are now in year three of Doug Peterson, year four of Trent Balky. The off season clearly to me feels like a reset break down the off season right now? Are they a better team now than they were at the end of last season? Long?

They're better? They're better. Well, they're better because the quarterbacks healthy. That's first and foremost. And I think he was hurt far worse than they let on at the end of last season. That's that was evident, And I think first and foremost that makes them a better team. Are they better on the offensive line? Yes, because Mitch Morrise will be the starting center. Is he a great player. Is a power player, No, but he's a good player and he's better and he knows what to do how to do it. You know, he's not look I beat up on Fortner a little bit, but Fortner stood straight up he wasn't strong enough. This kid knows how to play the angles to make it work. He's not a strong center either, but he's smart. So they're gonna be better on the offensive line because of him. I think getting Harrison into his second year will make him better. He'll understand, like in the run blocking, he never was that good in it because you didn't know how to get to the angles. He'll be better at it, so that'll be better wide receiver. I think probably if they're healthy, they're better. That is the problem. Last day they were never healthy.

If they can get on the same page at wide receiver, I think there's a school of thought. I said all on they should have resigned Calvin Ridley. I wanted that to happen for them, but you had You had to draw the line at a price, and I don't think they could go that high.

But there understand the price not going that high.

There is a school of thought, though, and I think I believe this that the offense when it was healthy and you had Marvin Jones and Christian Kirk and Evan Ingram and Za Jones all healthy, all going, this offense operated okay and it was efficient. If you just say in that equation that gave Davis place in Marvin Jones, is this core that much worse than that?

No?

So I mean, and I think they will work like this.

They will add to it. I would It wouldn't astound me to see him add to it in the first round.

By the way, people, I'd be stunned. He here's at seventeen.

Here's why the corner. The top two corners, the Mitchell kid from Toledo and Arnold from Alabama both might be gone by the time they pick. Untackled a great fit, right, and he's a good man player, so he would fit from that standpoint, But he doesn't tackle that well. It's a knock on him. So then you're dropping down that you're forcing a corner pick there, whereas you could sit and take a wide receiver, or you can drop down and get extra picks or something. But if you sit and take a wide receiver, you can get the guy who's going to be around when Trevor's around to be a generational quarter because you don't have that now.

But if they do that, what are they gonna do at corner?

Then you come back in the second round, you take it, okay, because you can go wide receiver, corner, corner, wide receiver.

See I see corners in knee. I'm just looking at corner as in need because of not only this year, but you don't know if Tyson Campbell's coming back.

Is the number one need. There's no doubt about that. But I'm saying if the two top guys are gone, then I think you're gonna be the position where you're forcing number three. Rather than take a wide receiver, I think it could be a generational wide receiver. And I'll give you the Thomas Kidd from LSU, six foot three, runs like a deer. He's probably best football is in front of him.

They haven't had that guy in a while.

No, so, and if you think about the big picture, you can't always okay, you can't always think about right now. You have to look at you have a generational quarterback, you think, and so for him to be that in three or four years, Kirk's probably not gonna be there, Jones isn't gonna be there, and Gave Davis probably isn't gonna be there. You have to have a guy, and if you can get that guy, that's all one theory of putting out there. I would lean to one of the corners. I'd probably lean to Arnold and Mitchell, which everyone is there if I could get one. If I can't get one, I'm looking at wide receiver. People talk about defensive line. Yeah they need a big defensive lineman, but they don't. They got Armstead they don't need. If Hamilton comes back, I think Hamilton will be fine. You know he had that issue last year and he's gonna get his weight back. He's gonna be fine. So you have a nice four up front, so you don't really need that. I think the needs are corner immediately, wide receiver for down the.

Rod sneaky need too. I would say offensive line there if the right guy was there. You could see that making sense because it came and walk with their book being in the last year.

What what do you take there? Though? Tackle? Yeah, they're not gonna take are not gonna take a center there?

If you no if a tackle, I suppose this is a really good offensive line draft for tackle. If it's there and it's staring in the face, where it's that much better than the other two positions, it would make sense just because, well, there's a couple.

Yeah, there's a couple of guys. The Washington kid Fatano and then the Oregon State tackle. Both of them have the look of guys who are right tackles but would be immediate guard starters, right, So you could do it from that safe. The only problem is they're physical. They're big, power guys in their offense. That's not that's not what they do right, So it would be in trouble to play them.

But if you're watching the interior of this line play last year, you wouldn't mind a big, physical guy.

No, And you need to write you need a right guard particularly, it's not just for this year, for the future. But you're talking about drafting the tackle, letting Robinson and Little out the door and moving Harrison over to left tackle or the other kid played left tackle for the future, which makes sense.

I guess I'm just talking that with Trevor and with you know, I think the offensive line, I think I think what Doug said on Monday morning is right. I think the offensive line would be better with Mitch Morris. With continuity. It would not bother me to see this team just take the attitude if we're going to invest yearly, somewhere on day one or two in that position and continue to be strong.

I would do that.

It's been a thing where it's felt like we could be a little better, we could be a little better. Just get strong there, right, And I know you can't do that every year, but philosophically, I would not have a problem with that approach. Considering that Harrison was the first first round offensive lineman they had taken since Fortner back in fourteen. It's a long time to go without having elite there, and they had not Fortner. I'm sorry, Anton Harris, Yeah, since Luke jokel Yeah, in fourteen. That's nine years between first round offensive linemen and I get there. There's some other things you have to do that, but somewhere you every five years it feels like you need a first round.

Or up there. Yeah, I would. I would consider offensive line in that spot if the right guy felt him, but I wouldn't sit him. I play him right, He's gonna be a guard. He's gonna be my right guard. Sorry, he's gonna be my right guard. And I don't I can't see them doing that though.

Yeah, I mean I could also see a scenario. You know, Cam Robinson, the cap number is still there, you draft, and maybe Cam after the draft gets traded because of the cap being a situation. Then you've got that linemap. Understand. I don't necessarily think that they that they want to do that. If the draft forces their hand, that could be an option.

See here, here's the problem with that scenario. Okay, it's not the problem, but this is the the X factor in that scenario. That means you're emitting. You blew the Walker little pick.

Well, it feels like him not starting is already sort of admitting that. Yeah, I mean what if if the admission is there. I don't know that there's a big difference between doing what we're talking about and not starting it.

Yeah, they talked about last year. Well when I said mentioned that, and well, you know he could he could play, he could beat that, you know if they get rid of Cam Robinson. Well they didn't get rid of Cam Robbins brought him back and so Walker Little went. The garden didn't look comfortable there, and from what I hear, he didn't like it there, So what what do you do with him? So basically you're looking at it the second round pick as a blown pig. I'll say it. I mean those are those are things that I get what you're saying, and you can flip it forward that way and it makes sense. But when you look at it from that standpoint, you you blew that pick. So and growing picks is where you have to do these things. That's the problem. Ultimately you're gonna Ultimately you're gonna have to get rid of high priced guys. That's just the nature of the beast. You get to the end of your contract, he's got to go. He's not worth it. Now you get you grab one of the other guys and young guys to let him play. But that's not what you do.

But it's also important not to necessarily hold on hold on to situations and be willing to make the personnel moves that you need to make. You mentioned Trevor Lawrence, We all lot to free the guys to talk about. I'll throw a stat at you that I've thrown around to anybody who'll listen to me. Pre injury, because you mentioned Trevor's injuries and people hate talking about injuries, but I think they were real with Trevor last year, he gets hurt against Cincinnati. Before that injury, Jags are thirteen and three in their last sixteen games and he's twenty nine and nine. Making the case that you just made, I think people who look so strongly at the turnovers late in the season at the poor play because he played bad in some cases, how significant is that stat to you? And where do you think Trevor Lawrence can go?

Oh, I thought he was going to be the MVP last year. I thought he'd throw thirty eight touchdown passes and you know, nearly five thousand yards, right, And so from my standpoint, it was a major disappointment he didn't play as well as I thought he would. But I think there were a lot of reasons that plague. One, he was sped up and the offense was sped up.

Now there's a difference in sped up. When fans here sped up, they oh, ghost you's seeing ghosts. I say, there's a dimonst between between being sped up for a reason and being worried about the pass rush.

Well, he's a long strider when he throws the football, so you better be stout in the middle, and they certainly were not stout right. And so when you have a quarterback who's a long strider, his initial inclination when he sees any sign of pressure is to get the hell out of it, right, So he was sped up from that standpoint. The other part of that equation is sped up in that you throw at levels, and I think early in the year there were times where he wasn't waiting for level number two to come open. He was throwing level one before he could give level two an opportunity because he wasn't he was afraid of what was coming inside. So that's what I mean by sped up. And then the third part of that sped up equation is they threw sixty five thousand bubble screens because they were sped.

Up, right, And so you throw horizontal R means you don't trust the offensive all right.

So add all three of those fastest together and that's why you didn't have a good Trevor larn.

How impactful two guys morse from your experience? How much can solidifying one spot help other spots? It's a weakest link thing, right.

It's definitely the weakest link thing because and I'll give you examples. Somebody told me the year before when in two thousand and twenty two Sheriff didn't play very well that year either.

He was heard right, But what they got out of him, he's gritty enough to make up for it.

And he helped Jawan Taylor have the best season of his career, in fact, make a boatload of money, even he wasn't as good a player as that money indicated. So sometimes you have one guy in there that can make the other guys better. And I think that's what Morse will give them. Morse will make that look. I've watched a lot of Mitch Morrese tape. He is athletic as hell. He knows how to play the angles, which is what Fortner didn't know how to do. So in other words, he knows when they get off the double and get to the second level, and he can get to the second level. And you know, a lot of times their angles are so bad on that offensive line, they have a double and then you're supposed to get to the next level. And by the time they think they're getting to the next level, the guy's over already run from that spot, so they can't get to him. So the guy makes the tackle and all of them were guilty of it. That's why they bought Cleveland back because he's so athletic. They love that.

Yeah, Eric Armstead, I'm always a little gun shy when you're talking about signing not ten year veterans long enough. If that worries me a little bit. But if healthy, what is he and how does he help him out?

He wasn't healthy last year and that showed up. They got run on a lot at the end of the year. You saw the playoffs that were run on by everybody. The Cardinals ran on him for one hundred and ninety yards at the end of the year, and a lot of that had to do with the fact that he wasn't healthy. In the Super Bowl, he was healthy, and you saw he was healthier, and you saw a guy who made plays, and he made a lot of plays because he's a big, physical, power player. Here's what else he is. He's a great dude and a great teammate and everybody will respond to him just like they used to with Kalayis. Okay, So I think that's the Klayis Campbell signing. What year was Klayis when.

He got in year in the league? I want to say he was nine, but he was very similar.

That's that's what they're getting from it. That's exactly that signing. That's the equivalent of it.

And how much do you put because clearly from listening to Doug today, he believes it's a big factor. Uh, every significant free agent from a team that is used to winning arms you know, Uh, two players from the Bills, player from the Packers, U two from the Ravens. You know. So these are franchises that have been in the playoffs seventeen times in the last five years. Armstead is sort of the I guess the crown jewel of that. Does that make that much of a difference? Can veterans bring that? Do you have to grow it? You know? I'm getting at that kind of culture that comes.

Yeah, No, that's because they be.

For homegrown culture.

Right.

If you can't get it.

You get guys that have been in winning cultures and that bleeds on the Otherlazers. Like last year, I'm sure it's spun out of control in that locker room. A couple of different times when they were eight and three and the number one seed, and reading the press clippings and everything else, you need a guy like Armstead or Morse to kind of rain him in a little bit. Look, we've been in this spot before and we've lost super Bowls. We know what you know, Armstead lost Super Bowl. He knows what it's like to not get there, and this is what it takes to get there. So I think that'll actually help them.

Looking at it right now, I haven't drafted yet. How do you see this team? I mean, it was it was over the top enthusiasm last year, and I think fans are now sort of reluctant to feel that again because you just saw them lose five out of last six. They're clearly better than a one in five team at the end of last season. Are they as good as the eight and three team? Where are they? In your mind?

They're probably a little I didn't think they played that well to get the eight and three.

To be honest with you, but they were to me. They were scrappy and savvy and they played.

Like I thought they would, right, And so I still think there's better football in that. I think the offense will be significantly better.

And it's it's so much Pete, and you know, I agree with you. I'm gonna sound like a coach here, but to me, last year everything started and the reason you didn't, the reason you never felt like they were solid, was because when they were in third and one, you didn't feel like they were automatically going to pick it up. And when you can't trust that, that's why the red zone struggled. That's why you know on third and one. I can remember sitting next to Kaya Stevens in the press box multiple times and saying, boy, this feels like a long down for this team. And I'm not trying to insult anybody in the line, but that's if you watch the scene, that's how it felt. You get away from that and then there everything else falls into place. Right.

Well, but that was the whole idea. You drafted the tight end in the second round, you drafted the running back because he was a physical runner. You're gonna be better in short you arden situations, but you never replaced the center.

That was the point, right, and that sort of came back, you know it. You're not trying to pile on Luke fordhims. I think it was more upfront than that.

Yeah, but.

To me, if if you're twenty five percent better in short yardage or need to run downs, I guess you'd call him you're twenty five percent better there, that makes you twenty five percent better everywhere else. And that's a huge, huge jump in the NFL.

And I think you know, their run defense had issues, and I think getting Hamilton back to being a three hundred and thirty pound guy and not two hundred and ninety pounds or whatever he was playing at because he was getting blown off the ball and that guy never got blown up. The getting him back into that line next to Armstead will make them much better against the run. Now, there's still some issues. For example, Luakon's a good player, but he makes a ton of tackles down the field. Needs to be better at that. Devin Lloyd that, I mean, let's be real.

They tunlocking him as the key.

Yeah, he traded up to get him, and he's got to become a better player. He had a couple of games earlier season where he said, Okay, maybe this is the year and then it went went left, and I think he's got to get back on track. Did Doug say today that Savage is going to play the Nickel.

Well, I think what they're doing Nickel right, Yeah, And in this defense, my understanding is it's probably best to call it a four to two five than a four to three four. So it sounds like they're going to have safeties meeting Antonio, Johnson, Savage, uh Wind Guard, Cisco, all sort of playing multiple roles at safety rather than I don't think. I don't think that they see Savage or Antonio as a true cover Nickel.

Well. Saints did it when they were like hybrid. I guess, like with Honey Badger when he played like down in the box and played yeah yeah.

So I think it's more in the spirit of that than thinking that he's coming in. I want to say cover Nickel.

But what I want to know is on third and five, if you have a quick, little shifty slot receiver who's.

Covering them, is it a bubble screen?

No, the other team won't run a bubble screen. Don't throw it. Yeah. That means like, okay, for example, that the Andy Reid was talking today about Marquise Brown and how they'll line him up in the slot sometimes. Okay, if Jacksonville's lined up on third and six, and Marquise Brown is in the slot.

That's why you gotta draft corners, which.

One of those? Which one of those? If you're not if one of those guys is actually playing the nickel, who's playing the nickel? Antonio Johnson doesn't have the hips to turn and flip them.

You need to get Ryan Nielson on.

Yeah, but that's that's a I don't know. If I'm matched up and I see Savage or Antonio Johnson on Marquise Brown, I'm going there, baby, because that's gonna be my you know. And that's not a slight on those guys. Say they're gonna be good saying I think Antonio Johnson's he was one athlete. He showed up weekend and weekend.

Right, it's hard. It's hard to see right now three corners that you love.

Okay, let's say guys, let's say they draft Arnold right, who plays inside in the nickel?

Probably whoever you're drafting third or fourth round. Well, okay, so oh so you're saying Arnold or Darby, I don't.

Know, he's not inside guy.

Right.

So it's just so there's so many that that nickel Lea and then Nichol is is on the field, sixty five percent of the.

Nicholas become a tough, tough, tough spot in Ellie. Yeah, because it's I'll tell.

You a lot. Draft Mikey Sanderstroll from Michigan in the third round and he'll be a nickel. That will be I'm telling you he will be a star nickel. You will love him well.

The strong school thought that your nickel is best as a five or six year guy because of how much experience it takes.

While you're rolling your eyes over there, Mikey Sanderstrom from Michigan will be one of the star corners in three years in this league. And as a nickel corner. You know how Mike Hilton is for the Bengals, how he makes all those big plays and there's a lot of scrimmage. That's what Jacksonville needs. They needed. Can't have the guy who can't cover anybody.

You've been saying that since nineteen ninety five. You've been saying a lot of things. This nineteen ninety five Tete, I can talk to you all day. It's the NFL owners means you got to cut this short. Thank you for joining us one podcast. We'd have you on every week.

I love talking to you, Budy.

I appreciate that