13JaxSeasonInReview

END OF SEASON TRANSCRIPTS
GENERAL MANAGER DAVE CALDWELL & HEAD COACH GUS BRADLEY
JOINT PRESS CONFERENCE
END OF SEASON MEDIA AVAILABILITY
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2013
(Opening Statement – General Manager Dave Caldwell) “First off, I’ve really grown to appreciate throughout this year to have an owner like Shad Khan
and a head coach like Gus Bradley, where the three of us are really aligned in our philosophies and our beliefs. I’ve really grown to appreciate how
important that is, not only to me but to this organization and this community. To have all three of us aligned with a similar vision and similar goals,
I think is critical for the growth of this organization for us to continue what we started this year. Shad has been incredible, extremely committed to
this team, to Gus and I and to this community, so we’re very fortunate to have him as an owner. Gus is our leader of the team. I wanted to take a
few minutes to let you guys know that. The year as a whole, very challenging but very rewarding. I think you guys know our challenges and we faced
them and we went through a lot of adversity early on, finished off relatively strong. But rewarding mostly because of the people we brought into this
organization; Gus, the assistant coaches, the surrounding support staff. Everybody did a great job of fighting through this year and have been active
in the community. We’re excited about what’s ahead of us.”
(On where the team made strides in 2013 to prepare for the future – General Manager Dave Caldwell) “I think we made pretty good headway with
that. We figured out a lot of our strengths and a lot of our weaknesses. This was really our first step in this journey, in this process. Our first step was
to build a foundation, to figure out our strengths and weaknesses, to set a standard of acceptability and to kind of figure out where we stand among
the 32 teams. I feel like we’ve made good headway with that.”
(On the strengths of the team – General Manager Dave Caldwell) “One is I believe we have tremendous leadership right now. Not only with our coaching
staff, but some veteran players have stood up and have come to the forefront for us this year. We feel like we have a good young core group of
players that have really come in and produced as rookies, which is hard to do for one. We look forward to those guys taking a step in year two. I think
generally your rookies, from year one to year two is where they make their biggest growth.”
(On the weaknesses of the team – General Manager Dave Caldwell) “I think for us early on, it was consistency and experience. Along with those
rookies doing well and playing there was a lot of inexperience and you have a lot of ups and downs with that. The consistency aspect would be one
of our weaknesses.”
(On how much salary cap space the team will have – Dave Caldwell) “We have to carry over some cap space and we’re in the process of doing that
now. I’ll probably have a more accurate number for you guys in a couple weeks.”
(On the overall performance of the draft class – General Manager Dave Caldwell) “I think from top to bottom we felt like those guys all made improvements
through the year, for the guys that played. That’s a real credit to our coaching staff, Gus and our assistant coaches, as well as the players. We
really feel like the one guy, reflecting back, was Johnathan Cyprien. You see a guy that made constant improvement from day one all the way to the
last game of the season. We forget that he missed training camp too with an injury, so he was set back a little bit, but really came on. (Dwayne)
Gratz, when he played, played well. Moving onto Ace (Sanders), rookie wide receiver, we drafted him as a punt returner and he ends up having 51
receptions for us. So I felt good about the production that those three guys had. Obviously Luke (Joeckel) was doing a nice job when we moved him
over to left tackle and he is going to be healthy, he’s back training with us right now. He hasn’t even left town, so we look forward to getting him
back on the field. Then guys like D-Rob (Denard Robinson), D-Mac (Demetrius McCray); we expect big things from them in the future. Josh Evans is
another guy that had a lot of playing time and has done a nice job.”
(On addressing the pass rush in free agency – Head Coach Gus Bradley) “I think we’re always going to try to improve our roster, and that’s an aspect
that we look at. We look at (the fact that we) improved on the stats from last year. I think the biggest thing for this year, you talked about the
strengths and weaknesses, what we were trying to establish was a standard of excellence, to recreate that and say, ‘Hey, this is what’s acceptable.’ And
I think after our first year going through it, now we just re-set that bar. We say, ‘Okay, now here are the improvements that we made; now we re-set
the bar.’ Now we’re on that journey. We just keep elevating and keep challenging. That’s the same thing with the sacks, specifically. ‘All right, here’s
where we were, we need to see improvement in these areas. Okay Now, let’s re-set that bar.’ And we do that through coaching, we do that through
personnel and again, to be creative in the ways we can get pressure.”
(On the total yardage on offense around the league being down – Head Coach Gus Bradley) “I don’t know, that’d be an interesting thing to look at.
You look at some of the gun-read series, last year was really effective and a lot of yards were gained off of that. It seemed like it slowed down a
little bit this year. Not saying teams stopped it, but it became more manageable. Maybe a lot of those yards came from that last year. It would be
an area to look at.”
(On what areas the Jaguars need to address this offseason in free agency and the draft – General Manager Dave Caldwell) “I would say rush, our
running game. I think with the ability to draft offensive linemen in the middle rounds, sign some guys of value in free agency. And I feel like that
and with another year in our system, is a feasible thing for us to accomplish going into next year. As far as the pass-rush goes, they’re not real easy
to find. I think we have to find the right person to fit our scheme. We’re going to be on track to find a good opportunity in free agency if there’s
somebody that we feel like we can develop as a pass-rusher or in the draft.”
(On if he remains committed to the zone-blocking scheme in the rush attack – Head Coach Gus Bradley) “Yeah, I think it’s just more challenging.
You’re creating more issues on a defense whenever you have the ability to do both. Some of it will be based on the personnel that we continue to
evolve to. We’ll use the strengths of our offensive line.”
(On if he can say with certainty that the quarterback situation will be addressed in the draft – General Manager Dave Caldwell) “I cannot say with
certainty.”
(On why it isn’t certain the team will take a quarterback in the draft – General Manager Dave Caldwell) “There are no guarantees in the draft. To be
quite frank, we don’t even know what quarterbacks are going to be available in the draft right now. So with certainty, I can’t tell you that.”
(On if the quarterback position needs to be addressed – General Manager Dave Caldwell) “I can say that we would like to upgrade a lot of our positions
and quarterback is one that we would like to upgrade.”