Antonio Johnson walked into the Jaguars’ building early on Monday and saw the news before most of his teammates did: Jacksonville had traded for Jessie Bates III, a safety who plays his position. By the time Johnson stood at the podium that afternoon, the 6-2 Jaguars had also added nose tackle Davon Godchaux, and Johnson was already talking about how he will help the new man learn the defense.
“It was excitement, ’cause, you know, he’s a good player and we know, like, okay, he fits into our defense,” Johnson said. “His skill set, he excels in this, and this is going to help us, you know, get to the next level.”
“I talked to him a few times in college”
Johnson said he already knew Bates a little through a coach they share. Mike Elko, his defensive coordinator in college, coached Bates at Wake Forest. “We talked a few times when I was in college, but not as much as [since] being in the league,” Johnson said. “Good person, though. Good person, good player.”
Asked how he will get Bates ready for Sunday’s game at Tennessee, Johnson said his job is simple. “Just being somebody he can come to, ask questions,” he said. “I’m sure he’s going to have a lot of questions about, you know, how things get ran over here.” He wants Bates to be “very comfortable” by the time he gets on the field, “so he can go out and play how you play.”
Johnson thinks the new safety will help the rest of the secondary too. The Jaguars pride themselves on takeaways, he said, and Bates is known for them. “Now it’s just another pillar that the offense got to look for and avoid,” he said. “They’re going to try not to, you know, attack him, and then that allow other players to, you know, step up and make plays.”
On Tuesday the Jaguars posted a short selfie video from Bates in Jacksonville. “Hey, it’s JB3 here. I’m back here in Jacksonville. Happy to be here,” he said. “Happy for this opportunity. What a blessing.”
The most experienced safety in the room
Johnson’s own role has grown this season. Starting safety Eric Murray is out for the year with an elbow injury and Caleb Ransaw is on injured reserve, and Johnson said that going into the win over the Ravens he realized he had become the most experienced safety on the field. “That was crazy to me, ’cause, like, always been, like I said, one of the youngest players to play in our room,” he said. He said his communication “had to take a step” and that his job now is “making sure that when we get to the game that everybody’s on cue and we ready to rock.”
He also said the snaps that younger safeties have taken in recent weeks will pay off later. “You learn from your scars,” he said, repeating something he hears from coaches. “In order to learn from them, you got to make them.”
Asked about Liam Coen’s message to the team about how badly the players want to be great, Johnson said the Jaguars need to clean up their own mistakes first. “A lot of it has been self-inflicted wounds,” he said. “It’s us versus us before it’s us versus anybody else.”
Boerkircher: “A part of a unit that is truly all-in”
Rookie tight end Nate Boerkircher spoke after Johnson. He was asked whether it felt surreal to be part of a team that was “truly all-in” in his first season. “Yeah, absolutely. And that’s kind of the message that we have in meetings, and that’s kind of our culture,” he said. “We want to go out there and win and, like I said, we are actively pushing to get better.”
Boerkircher said a rookie meeting with some of the team’s player personnel staff had pointed to teams that start well and then fade. “You can’t get complacent, and we can’t just do what we’ve been doing to win,” he said. “We have to keep pushing to get better.” He also explained his 50-yard catch against the Ravens, saying Trevor Lawrence rolled right and kept his eyes downfield when “a lot of quarterbacks would have just, uh, kind of tuck it and ran.” He said of Lawrence: “He’s a stud.”
Asked about scouting reports before the draft that called him a blocking tight end first, Boerkircher said the question comes up “in every single interview,” but that he does not focus on it. “Maybe it’s a small motivator. It’s in the back of my mind,” he said. “But, you know, really, it’s just line up and play ball and win my one-on-one.”
Georgia teammates again
The third move of the day brought defensive tackle Jordan Davis from Philadelphia. On Tuesday the Jaguars posted video of him settling into a locker next to defensive end Travon Walker, his teammate at Georgia. Davis’ No. 90 nameplate now sits beside Walker’s No. 44.
The Jaguars lead the AFC South by three games and visit the Titans on Sunday, November 15. Our step-by-step look at the three trades explains what Jacksonville gave up, and Coen’s full comments on Bates are in our Monday news conference story.
No published comments yet. Start the conversation.