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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Ozone Podcast presented by Bistar Credit Union

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Speaker 1: with Jaguars senior writer John Oser. All right, welcome to

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Speaker 1: this post combine ozone podcast, and we're joined by everybody

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Speaker 1: who follows the NFL Knows and Peter King of NBC Sports. Um. Fantastic,

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Speaker 1: and I appreciate you joining. This is a busy week

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Speaker 1: for you. First of all, how are you doing and

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Speaker 1: how is your writing world going right now? It's changed

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Speaker 1: so much over the years since we've known each other. Yeah, John,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a weird world. There just aren't many people

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Speaker 1: who do primarily or almost exclusively writing anymore. You've got

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Speaker 1: to do all other things now. I have a podcast,

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Speaker 1: and I do some television, but not a lot out

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Speaker 1: of it. Mostly it's this column I write on Monday

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Speaker 1: football morning in America. But I still really love doing

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Speaker 1: what I'm doing, and so I always feel like it's

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Speaker 1: still I'm still really, really fortunate to be doing what

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Speaker 1: I'm doing. So life is good and I'm happy, and

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Speaker 1: I would think that again. The fortunate part is, you know,

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Speaker 1: you've built a pay readership for so long, and I

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Speaker 1: love the way you approach mondays, and I know that's

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Speaker 1: been something that has evolved over the years. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you know, back in the day Sports illustrat you're writing

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Speaker 1: one story late at night. Now you're doing the entire

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Speaker 1: league and it's yeoman's effort. Do you still feel I'm

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Speaker 1: just curious about this. You were way ahead of a

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Speaker 1: lot of us on Twitter. You're having Twitter meetups. You

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Speaker 1: realize imports of that. It seems like you enjoy the

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Speaker 1: connection and and you enjoy that and you enjoy being

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Speaker 1: out there. Do you still feel that Nine people at

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Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated said to me, we'd like you to go

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Speaker 1: on Twitter. I had I did not know what it was,

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Speaker 1: really knew, so they told me, and I said, hey,

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Speaker 1: if you think it's important, I'll do it. So they

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Speaker 1: asked me, three or four times a week, would you

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Speaker 1: go on and and answer questions from people and you'll

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Speaker 1: find that you'll gain some following because of it. And

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Speaker 1: I thought it was a bunch of happy horsecrap. Really

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Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't think anything of it. But at

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Speaker 1: the time Twitter was really starting to grow, and I

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Speaker 1: remember early on, maybe three or four months into it,

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Speaker 1: Twitter had had a d A had what they called

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Speaker 1: suggested followers are suggested follows, and there were two in sports,

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Speaker 1: me and Bill Simmons, and so I just remember thinking

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Speaker 1: I opened up my laptop one day and I had

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Speaker 1: forty thousand more followers than I had the day before,

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Speaker 1: and I said, wow, there's something going on here. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, I mean, I always just felt like, you know,

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Speaker 1: why not. It's something that obviously people are interested in,

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Speaker 1: people are following. Now. You know, in the last probably

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Speaker 1: three years, I've mostly gone away from it. Not that

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Speaker 1: I don't do it at all anymore. Sometimes I will

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Speaker 1: answer questions from people, but the bottom line in it

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Speaker 1: that I have seen is that for every one person

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Speaker 1: you have a good exchange with, you have five people

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Speaker 1: telling me you're a no good pos and so I

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Speaker 1: don't know, after a while, you just said, yeah, ten

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Speaker 1: of those. After a while I've just said, essentially, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's been nice, and I'll do it sometimes, but I

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Speaker 1: don't do it as much as I used to. And

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Speaker 1: I still put my stuff out there and people still

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Speaker 1: link from it to my columns. So it's valuable, but

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Speaker 1: I probably am not addicted to it. I know, I'm

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Speaker 1: not addicted to it the way I used to be. Well,

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Speaker 1: without being too much of a you know, and I

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Speaker 1: think people who read and I think there's still a

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Speaker 1: lot of people who read left. Your Monday's are the

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Speaker 1: closest thing you have to inside the NFL on a

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Speaker 1: Monday quick turnaround. I know how hard it is and

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Speaker 1: I really respect what you do. So, UM, tell me

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Speaker 1: about the Jaguars this year. And I know you were

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Speaker 1: able to get in touch with Doug Peterson multiple times

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Speaker 1: after games, so you got a little bit of a

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Speaker 1: sense of him in real time. I know you've known

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Speaker 1: Doug for a long time. Yeah, you know. I guess

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Speaker 1: first question would be how, if not surprised, but what

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Speaker 1: did you learn about this team from your conversations with

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Speaker 1: Doug and any huge takeaway you have after I think

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Speaker 1: I would say there are three things that first of all,

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Speaker 1: that I observed and then I learned from my conversations

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Speaker 1: this year. Number One, UM, I think that Trent Balky,

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Speaker 1: who uh. I. I don't want to say I disparaged him,

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Speaker 1: but I wasn't necessarily all in the fact that Trent

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Speaker 1: Balky was gonna build a Super Bowl champion. He has

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Speaker 1: had some really really good signings, He's had some really

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Speaker 1: good draft choices. I thought, you know, and this is

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Speaker 1: just totally in a side, but I mean, this game

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Speaker 1: is about people like Roy Robertson Harris. And when I

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Speaker 1: say this game is about people like that, what I

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Speaker 1: mean is if you don't hit on five or six

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Speaker 1: or eight or ten guys of that caliber, you're not

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Speaker 1: gonna win, you know, because if you have a quarterback

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Speaker 1: and you have nothing else, you're not winning. And I

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Speaker 1: think one of the things that Trent Balky has done

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Speaker 1: is he's really boosted the overall talent level of this team. Okay,

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Speaker 1: that's number one. Number two, I think one of the

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Speaker 1: things that Doug Peterson re established in this team is that, look,

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Speaker 1: we are not here to recreate football in any way.

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Speaker 1: And look, you know, obviously Urban Meyer was a different

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Speaker 1: guy and a different kind of coach, and Doug Peterson

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Speaker 1: basically was going to be and has been, a football coach.

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Speaker 1: And that's all he is. He's not looking for, you know,

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Speaker 1: endorsements or TV jobs or anything like that. He's not

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Speaker 1: looking to be an oracle because he's not an oracle.

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Speaker 1: He is a football coach who gets his team to

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Speaker 1: believe in him. And that's what I noticed. And I

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Speaker 1: think number three is, and this goes back to Week

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Speaker 1: seventeen of twenty twenty one. The quarterback in this franchise

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Speaker 1: has taken, I think, a bigger leadership role, which comes

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Speaker 1: with a longer period of time in the game. And

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Speaker 1: so to me, I think I really appreciate all three

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Speaker 1: of those things because look, if you don't have good

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Speaker 1: personnel acquisition, you don't have a good coach, and you

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Speaker 1: don't have a good quarterback in the quarterback with the

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Speaker 1: kind of it's the best word to say, the quarterback

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Speaker 1: with started a kind of leadership tendency and also never

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Speaker 1: say die tendencies. Those are those are three elements of

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Speaker 1: a championship team, and I think this year Jacksonville prove

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Speaker 1: that they have three burgeoning elements of a championship team.

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Speaker 1: You said something very interesting about coaching. You mentioned Doug

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Speaker 1: Peterson and you never even mentioned play calling. Well, I

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Speaker 1: agree with you. I think what you talked about the

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Speaker 1: leadership division is infinitely more important than the play calling.

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Speaker 1: And that's really what he is as much as anything.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he can call plays, but the ability to

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Speaker 1: lead and the ability what you said, make people believe

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Speaker 1: in him, that's everything for head coach in yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think so. And plus the players have to believe in

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Speaker 1: the coach. They just do. And you know, I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, two three months into the urban Meyer experiment,

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Speaker 1: maybe six or seven months, I think you found that

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Speaker 1: there are players that really started to question urban Meyer,

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Speaker 1: some of them quietly, some of them not so quietly.

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Speaker 1: So I think Doug Peterson, you know, look, it's a

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Speaker 1: weird it's a cliche to say that he just steadied

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Speaker 1: the ship. And that's what you need to do. You

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Speaker 1: need to you need to have a steadiness to what

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Speaker 1: a coach does. And I don't know, I really feel,

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Speaker 1: I feel strongly about this that there are some elements that,

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Speaker 1: you know, a championship team needs, and I think these

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Speaker 1: are the elements that Doug Peterson really is established inside

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Speaker 1: this team right now. And again, I think Doug is

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Speaker 1: a fairly simple guy. He wants to come to work,

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Speaker 1: he wants to coach his team. He's I mean, he

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Speaker 1: was like this in Philadelphia too. It's just that things

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Speaker 1: went off the rail, especially with the quarterback. But you

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Speaker 1: know what he is is he is a guy who

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Speaker 1: doesn't need a lot of care and feeding and a

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Speaker 1: lot of maintenance. Just give me my office, Give me

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Speaker 1: my players, give me my team, and I'll coach him.

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Speaker 1: And as long as we got a good quarterback, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna have a good chance to win every week. Is

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Speaker 1: an impossible question to answer, but you've seen enough teams

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Speaker 1: over the years where I think your opinion has merit.

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Speaker 1: Is this a sustainable thing the Jags have going in seventeen?

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Speaker 1: They got there. Every fan who asked me always wants

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Speaker 1: to know, how is this going to be different? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was answering head coaching, quarterback? Is it that simple?

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Speaker 1: Is this sustainable? Well? Look, even though Blake Bortle's got

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Speaker 1: this franchise to an AFC Championship game, I don't think

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Speaker 1: that there are a lot of people who felt like,

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, We're gonna win multiple super Bowls

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Speaker 1: with Blake Bortles. It's nothing personal against Blake Bortles, but

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Speaker 1: I mean, I just think people thought that he definitely

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Speaker 1: had a ceiling and they were near that ceiling, and

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Speaker 1: when they didn't get the job done in Foxborough, I

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Speaker 1: think that everybody sort of saw that this was this

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Speaker 1: franchise at the time had limits. Now I don't think

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Speaker 1: anybody would say, look, I'm not saying that Trevor Lawrence

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Speaker 1: is going to be an all time quarterback. That remains

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Speaker 1: to be seen. But he shows the ability. You know,

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Speaker 1: when you're down nine hundred to nothing in a playoff

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Speaker 1: game to the Chargers at halftime, and he basically has

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Speaker 1: a bunch of never say die moments in the second half,

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Speaker 1: you have to just respect that and you have to

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Speaker 1: understand that essentially, you know, now we know that we're

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Speaker 1: not out of any game, which resonates to every player

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Speaker 1: in the team. I think so, I definitely think so,

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Speaker 1: And so I don't know. I think this team has

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Speaker 1: elements that a championship team needs, and now it's all

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Speaker 1: about building around those elements with other position groups while

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Speaker 1: understanding that no team wins in a vacuum. I mean, hey,

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Speaker 1: the Miami Dolphins are a good team, but the Buffalo

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Speaker 1: Bills are a really good team. Hey, the Chargers are

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Speaker 1: a good team. Kansas City is a really good team.

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Speaker 1: So you know, you need help along the way and

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Speaker 1: all that stuff. But I think definitely this team, it

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Speaker 1: has got a pretty good blueprint going forward. One final question,

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Speaker 1: there's oo I love talking league issues with you can't

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Speaker 1: talk about them all, but you're probably the dean of

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Speaker 1: the people who cover this league. What issue do you

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Speaker 1: look at now that that's the most pressing. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you think about things in the off season that you're

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Speaker 1: gonna follow curious about. Is there anything overall concerning interesting

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Speaker 1: that you're going to be intrigued with this offseason. I

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Speaker 1: think the biggest responsibility the NFL has this offseason, it's

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Speaker 1: not officiating, it's not a rule. It isn't that. It

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Speaker 1: is getting the Washington franchise in shape and in better

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Speaker 1: shape than it has been in this century. Because I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's very clear that you know, the league

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Speaker 1: wants to move on from Daniel Snyder, that the fan

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Speaker 1: base certainly has wanted to move on for data from

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Speaker 1: Daniel Snyder for years, and he's become much too much

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Speaker 1: of a distraction to keep him around. So my feeling

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Speaker 1: is that is the number one news story in the

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Speaker 1: NFL news cycle this offseason. I think secondarily, I'm just

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Speaker 1: totally fascinated by what's going to happen to Lamar Jackson,

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Speaker 1: and I think it's so interesting and and you know,

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Speaker 1: I think people try to oversimplify it a little bit

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Speaker 1: by saying, oh, the Ravens just don't want to pay

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Speaker 1: him a guaranteed contract. I mean, it's so much more

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Speaker 1: than that. I mean, Lamar Jackson in the last two years,

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Speaker 1: in the month of months of December and January has

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Speaker 1: started and finished one game, and he's been thirty four

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Speaker 1: percent of the snaps over the last two years. You've

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Speaker 1: got to take that into account when you're gonna when

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Speaker 1: you're gonna sign him. So, you know, I've got a

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Speaker 1: pretty strong opinion about how it should be handled. In

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Speaker 1: my opinion, I think Baltimore should try to recite him,

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Speaker 1: even if it's to a fully guaranteed contract for a

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Speaker 1: short term two years, maybe three years most because it's

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Speaker 1: clear that they're not going to make a long term deal,

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Speaker 1: so want to change for something else. The Ravens know

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Speaker 1: right now that they have a team that is ready

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Speaker 1: to win, and in my opinion, it won't be ready

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Speaker 1: to win if they draft a quarterback in the first

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Speaker 1: round and then have to train that guy and blah

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Speaker 1: blah blah. So I don't know. Those are probably the

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Speaker 1: two things that I think of what's going to happen

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Speaker 1: to Lamar Jackson, What's gonna happen to the Washington franchise.

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Speaker 1: Give me your best how the Combine has changed stories

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Speaker 1: since your story government, and that will be done. In

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Speaker 1: two thousand, I came to the Combine and they were

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Speaker 1: about i'd say between fifteen and twenty or twenty three

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Speaker 1: reporters at the Combine. This year they are more than

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Speaker 1: twelve hundred media credential to the Combine. And in two

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Speaker 1: thousand we as a media group of John Clayton, me,

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Speaker 1: Rick Gosselin, John Zarneski, just Don Pearson from Chicago. I mean,

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Speaker 1: just a bunch of now people. Many of those people

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Speaker 1: are retired or not writing anymore. I'll never forget. I

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Speaker 1: was in the one of the hotels here where all

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Speaker 1: the players stayed in the Holiday in Crown Center, and

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Speaker 1: the NFL did not allow us to go anywhere, so

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Speaker 1: we were staking out at the lobby and no one

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Speaker 1: was helping us. Nothing was organized, So you basically had

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Speaker 1: to do everything yourself. Not to mention the fact, John,

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Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but the vast majority of

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Speaker 1: college football players, I don't know who they are. If

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Speaker 1: I walk by no, but nothing. If I walked by him,

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Speaker 1: I don't know who it is. And so one day

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Speaker 1: this really tall guy is walking through the lobby and

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Speaker 1: I introduced myself and I thought that it might be

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Speaker 1: Plexico Burst, and I said, Hey, I'm Peter King with

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Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated. He goes, oh, yeah, I'm Plexico Burst, Michigan

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Speaker 1: state wide receiver. And I said, hey, I'd love to

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Speaker 1: write about you. I didn't really know if I was

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Speaker 1: going to write about him, but we sat down in

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Speaker 1: a little restaurant in the Holiday in Crown Plaza for

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Speaker 1: an hour and a half. He kind of told me

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Speaker 1: his life story and that became my story. Out of

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Speaker 1: the Combine, I guess. But you know, the thought of

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Speaker 1: spending an hour and a half with anybody here at

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Speaker 1: the Combine, you're lucky to get one question. But that's

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Speaker 1: just the way it's. It's that's just the way it's happened.

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Speaker 1: I've never been one of those people who just, you know,

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Speaker 1: pines for yesterday. It's just that's just the way it is,

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Speaker 1: so you deal with it. Yeah. My first one was

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Speaker 1: the next year I was kind of the Jags for

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Speaker 1: the TU Purse. One was oz one. My only interview

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Speaker 1: with Tom Coughlin, who was the head coach that year,

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Speaker 1: was as he was walking into the Catholic church across

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Speaker 1: the street. I caught him for Saturday Mass. I didn't

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Speaker 1: get him till Saturday. I looked for him all week.

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Speaker 1: So that's how it's changed. Now. You would get him

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Speaker 1: on a podium for fifteen minutes and then he would

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Speaker 1: do the rounds, he'd do the car wash. But you

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Speaker 1: tell people who cover it now, the whole podium thing

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Speaker 1: dramatically changed it, some for the better, some for you know,

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Speaker 1: as we say, it's different. There's not the personal stuff,

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Speaker 1: but that's the nature of the last twenty years. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but you know, I mean the way I look at

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Speaker 1: the combine is I think more than anything now. You know,

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Speaker 1: I met with Mike McDaniel, the Miami coach while I

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Speaker 1: was here, and Mike I met him up in his

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Speaker 1: room in his hotel. And that is not common, going

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Speaker 1: up into a coach's room and talking to him there.

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Speaker 1: But as he told me, one of the reasons he

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Speaker 1: does that when he wants to talk to somebody, He

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Speaker 1: asked him to come up to his room because he

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Speaker 1: just can't be in the lobby of the hotel. There

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Speaker 1: are three hundred people there and he'll be swarmed, and

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Speaker 1: so if he really wants to like get things done.

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Speaker 1: He's got to be up in his room. So I

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Speaker 1: understand that it's just the whole thing is a different world.

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Speaker 1: But everything about football right now, John, as you know,

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Speaker 1: is a different world from what it was two decades ago. Well,

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Speaker 1: you helped create pop Ride, Peter King. I appreciate you

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Speaker 1: very much