Calais Campbell

I liked Calais Campbell the first time we met. You know that feeling when you meet somebody and they emit some kind of aura that’s instantly disarming. His handshake, his body language, how he looks you in the eye during conversation.

“I feel the same way,” Jaguars Guard A.J. Cann agreed. “When I first met him I knew he was something special. He can step into a room full of people and when he leaves everybody loves him.”

He’s engaging and gregarious, smart and thoughtful. Where’d that come from?

“From my dad,” Campbell said after his normal media time this week on Wednesday. Calais’ dad, Charles, died just a few months after Campbell’s high school graduation. “He’d make five friends just going to the grocery store,” Calais added.

The youngest of six brothers, with two younger sisters, Campbell has always had athletic ability and size. “I’ve been this tall since I was 15,” he said. Listed at 6’9” and 300 lbs., Campbell is one of the largest people you’ll ever meet. Reminds me of Shaquille O’Neal when he was with the Magic. Just a few inches shorter.

“Big? He might be the biggest guy I’ve ever faced,” Jaguars Guard A.J. Cann said. “He’s freakish in a good way. I’ll be behind him getting on the scale and it’ll say ‘300’ and he’ll step down and he’s cut. He has abs, he’s broad shouldered.”

But it’s his demeanor, leadership, and presence that are universally respected. His father’s early influence has stuck with him though his days at the University of Miami and in the NFL.

“I used to brag on myself all the time” he added. “My dad hated it. He said, ‘If you’re that good, you don’t have to tell anybody.’ And he was right.”

Campbell, an All-Pro and four time Pro Bowler, was named the AFC Defensive Player of the Week for the second time in his Jaguars career for his play last Thursday against Tennessee.

Denver is Calais’ hometown so this week’s game against the Broncos is somewhat of a homecoming. He’s rounded up more than 200 tickets for family and friends and donated $20,000 from his foundation to Denver charities this week. He’s doing the same here at home, donating $20,000 a month to different charities in town based on his performance and encouraging fans and sponsors to donate as well.

“Success comes from a village,” Campbell said when asked about his community commitments. “I’ve had a lot of people help me along the way.”

“We have a lot of ballers,” said Tight End Geoff Swaim. “But Calais is much more than that. He’s a real leader.”

Swaim is a five-year veteran who spent four years in Dallas. He characterized the culture in the Cowboy’s locker room as “really good.” And says Campbell and Nick Foles, in different ways, set that same tone here.

“Calais says the right things and he backs it up with what he does,” Swaim explained. “Leadership is displayed in different ways. Calais is a great leader. He doesn’t show his emotions in a negative way. He’s human and that’s hard to do sometimes.”

“I try to be genuine,” Campbell said when his teammates words were relayed to him. “Talk it and walk it.”

“Super-human” is how his play on the field is described occasionally. Swaim has been a victim of that.

“I had him on one play in practice,” he explained. “It was a zone block and I got my hands on him in the right spot. My feet were right and I thought ‘I’ve got him.’ He saw the play and just extended his arm and zoomed me down the line and made the tackle. I looked at my assistant coach and he just shrugged his shoulders.”

“I just try and be a sponge,” Jaguars third-year tackle Cam Robinson said. “He’ll talk to me in practice about what he did and how I reacted and what I could do better. I’m listening because whatever he’s doing, it’s working!”

At 6’6” and 320 lbs. Robinson is big in his own right. But when he lines up in front of Campbell in practice, it gets his attention.

“He’s the biggest guy I’ve faced,” he said.

With 84.5 career sacks, 25 of those coming in Jacksonville, Campbell can get after the quarterback. But he’s equally effective stopping the run. Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone says he’s a complete player. “Couldn’t ask for anything better,” he added.

“He doesn’t hear anything on the field,” Campbell’s defensive line mate Marcel Dareus said with a laugh when I asked for something about Calais we don’t know. “At least he acts like he doesn’t hear anything. We call the play and he’ll say one or two things and then he zones in. I’ll be yelling ‘Calais, Calais’ about what’s going on and he acts like he doesn’t hear a thing. But then the play goes and he does the right things and I say, ‘OK, he heard me.”

I’ve said many times that Campbell is the kind of guy you hope stays in town after his playing days are over. He can have a real positive impact on the community. So I asked him about that.

“We love it here,” he said, “We’re splitting our time between Arizona and here mostly.”

“But what about staying?” I asked.

“It’s tough because my family is out west,” he added. “Some in California, a few in Denver and some in Arizona.”

Hard to say what’ll happen when his career is over but currently in the third year of a four-year deal, Calais is still playing at high level. No matter his production from this point forward, the Jaguars shouldn’t let him get away. The Cardinals still lament the day they let him sign here as a free agent for both his on and off-field presence.

“He’s had some players and their wives over to his place and his wife and mine were going to get together,” Cann said of Campbell’s impact. “I told her ‘I’ll go,’ just to hang out with Calais.”

Ramsey Answer Is In The Mirror

After the Jaguars 20-7 win over Tennessee at home on Thursday night Head Coach Doug Marrone called it the ”longest short week we’ve had in the NFL.” While prepping for a division opponent and still looking for their first win, the Jalen Ramsey story hung over the Jaguars like a dark cloud that wouldn’t go away.

So it was a unique week in Jacksonville. That’s because Jalen Ramsey is a unique player. Unique in that he’s fantastically talented, and woefully misguided. But he’s not alone in this unique category. There have been others on the Jaguars in the past and sprinkled through NFL rosters as well.

For pretty much as long as he can remember, Ramsey has been told how good he is, that he’s special. And there is no denying that. At this point in his athletic career he’s always in the discussion about who’s the best cornerback in the NFL. So he has a special talent that he’s spent a few years developing. But he stopped developing everything else.

Ed Reed talked about this kind of player prior to his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction. The one’s who have no concept of how the uniform they left on the floor in front of their locker yesterday was cleaned and hung up perfectly today. Call it immaturity, a lack of self awareness or whatever, but Ramsey lives in that “bubble” of an echo chamber where only good things said about him count.

One classmate at Florida State said, “It’s typical Jalen. He creates this kind of situation where ever he goes.”

When asked this week, his teammates have nothing but glowing things to say about him. So as a teammate, he apparently sets the right tone. And against the Titans, true to his word, Ramsey played, played hard and played well. But that’s all about football. His actions this week show he doesn’t’ know much about life. Because that’s not how life works.

One veteran player raised his eyebrows and shook his head “Yes” when asked this week about every player dealing with something on every play. “Even in practice” he added quietly. So they know what’s going on. You deal with whatever it was and you move on.

Would Ramsey have had the same demand if Leonard Fournette had scored on the 2-point play? An inch makes that much difference? The Jaguars now would be 2-1 and in the thick of the division race three games into the season. His problem is apparently with the front office saying that some “disrespectful” things were said to him after last week’s game. I guess he’s never worked in a newsroom.

Everybody deals with something. I’m always amused when people associated with professional sports say “it’s an emotional game, it’s a high stress situation” as if nobody else would understand. Try standing in the ER one night and watching nurses and doctors handle the “high stress” situations hour after hour. Or get behind the wheel of a fully loaded 18-wheeler in bad weather with bad drivers all around at night and see how stressful that is.

When something doesn’t go right, those people don’t just say, “I want out!” they figure out how to get the job done. And that’s what gains respect in our city. Jacksonville is more working class than white collar and people in this town put up with plenty. They go to work every day and get their jobs done. Nobody cares if you’re making a dollar or a million dollars. If you’re figuring out how to do your best at whatever you do, that’s fine with them.

Any championship team usually reflects the city where they’re based. Think about the Steelers in Pittsburgh, the Eagles in Philly and even 20 years ago the Raiders in Oakland. It’s why football fans in Jacksonville are entertained by offense but they LOVE defense. It’s a reflection of our culture. We’re pretty comfortable in our own skin and don’t have a problem if you want to leave. Planes and trains are departing every hour. Maybe Ramsey’s just not a good fit here.

Bumping into the coach, shouting obscenities at the boss, holding onto that moment and ultimately asking to be traded sounds like something out of middle school. Walking away from a Ramsey press opportunity has always had that “middle school” feeling. Most times the press corps looks at each other in the aftermath and asks, “Really?” You might have seen it in the press conference he called on Tuesday. When it was over, mostly the reaction was “What was that?”

It reminds me of an episode of “30 Rock” centered on John Hamm’s character Drew Baird. He’s a good-looking doctor who’s always been told how good he is at everything. People try to curry favor with him because he’s a doctor and he’s good looking. Tina Fey’s character starts up a relationship with him only to find out he lacks so much self-awareness that he’s actually terrible at just about everything, But he has no idea since nobody’s every actually told him that. They’re too busy telling him how good looking and what a great doctor he is. “Drew Baird,” she says. “So good looking and so, so stupid.”

It’s not that Ramsey is stupid at all. He just lacks the self-awareness of how the rest of the world works and how it applies to him. You might say the NFL is a unique place, but when things aren’t exactly to your liking, you can’t just run away from it looking for something else. Because it’s usually not there.

Jalen has been called out plenty by former NFL players including Jaguars TV analyst Leon Searcy who cited Rod Woodson as an example of how to get things done. One of the former player-analyst on a post game show last week, Nate Burelson, called the modern player, and he paused for a second before saying this, “umm, sensitive.”

“They have their faces in their phones in the locker room. Everything that happens to them or anything they do is on social media immediately. They’re reacting to what the people in their circle are saying about it.”

“It’s football,” another analyst chimed in, “It’s not a sport for ‘sensitive.’ It doesn’t work that way.”

Neither does the rest of the world.

I don’t harbor any ill will toward Jalen. I know he’s young and we all look back at things we did and said when we were 24 and usually cringe. I do hope he does find what he’s looking for, even if it’s here.

Because it’s actually right in the mirror.

Jaguars Loss Shows What To Fix

Pretty often my favorite Jaguars fan asks me, “Are we the Browns? We’re the Browns of the South right?” I’ve always laughed the question away but when you look at the 24 years of Jaguars history, their lack of consistent success certainly puts them in a category something other than perennial favorites.

After Week 1 of the NFL season, every team starts to have a feel for what they’ve got and how their players will react in game situations. Teams that win in the opening week don’t get too high; teams that lose get back to work. Nobody panics, and nobody pops champagne.

Fans, on the other hand, have already decided what their team’s fate is going to be. Patriots, Chiefs and Ravens fans are making plans for the Super Bowl. Jaguars, Browns and Dolphins fans are making plans to go skiing.

After Sunday’s game, Jaguars fans were of two minds regarding the 2019 version of their team.

“It was ugly and embarrassing,” one fan wrote to me. “Where’s the defense?” another tweeted. “Fragile Nick,” was a popular DM on my feed.

But some others decided to take a different route.

“I’ve decided to put some positivity in the universe and am going to say it’s not as bad as it looked,” one wrote to me last Sunday night. Another pinged me saying, “Fournette looked good and Minshew looks like he can play.”

It’s an interesting position reporters have, hearing what the fan base is thinking but also dealing directly with the players and coaches. On one hand, fans can be pretty harsh, deriding the players’ and usually referring to their social life, their effort or the money they’re making. On the other hand, being in the locker room, talking to players and coaches and watching parts of practice, we get to see the effort and hear the commitment most players and coaches have to being their best and winning.

“We’ll be alright. We just have to find a way to win these games,” is a quote I’ve heard from numerous Jaguars players in post-game locker rooms in the last ten years, most recently from Calais Campbell. You can see the wheels spinning when they say that, trying to figure out the next thing they can do to contribute to a win. They don’t give up. It’s not in the nature of any athlete who makes it to the NFL to give up. Especially after Week 1. They’re highly competitive people.

When Head Coach Doug Marrone says, “Stuff happens,” (trying not to curse), he accepts the reality of a performance-based outcome.

“We’re in a profession where people are going to say, ‘Hey, you should do this, you have to do this, you didn’t do this well with the team, you didn’t do that,’ and I understand that,” he added. “A lot of times, what people say, it’s right out there on the screen and that’s the way it is.”

Nobody is happy that Nick Foles is injured after just two series in the opening game. What the Jaguars should be more concerned about is how their defense disappeared and how undisciplined they played. Granted, Kansas City might be the best offense in the league but if the Jaguars are going to hang their hat on defensive performance, it has to be better than that.

And for all of the talk about Myles Jack becoming a complete player in his third season, to get thrown out of the game just makes you shake your head. It’s out of character for him. But don’t tell me “it’s an emotional game.” He’s a professional and knows he’ll have his chance to exact a toll on the opposition the next time the ball is snapped.

It seemed like a stretch to keep just two quarterbacks when one was a rookie, but Gardner Minshew validated the confidence the Jaguars had in him by naming him the number two quarterback. He set the franchise record for completion percentage; a league record for consecutive passes completed in his debut and gave fans some hope. Remember, this is the guy who told Tom Coughlin at the combine when they first met, “I know, I’m too short, too slow and don’t have a good enough arm. But I did win eleven games last year.”

With Foles out at least half the season, the Jaguars are going with a rookie quarterback as the starter and acquired Josh Dobbs from Pittsburgh as some insurance. Trading for Dobbs shows that Coughlin, Caldwell and company thinks this team is ready to win now. Is Minshew Earl Morrall or Jeff Hostetler or just another rookie trying to make it in the league?

One thing’s for sure, the team and the coaching staff have the confidence that he can get the job done. Not just from his stats against the Chiefs but what he’s been able to fight through at every level he’s played.

“He’s a guy that really works hard outside of this building,” Marrone said of his new starting QB. “He’s a guy that has been through a ton of adversity. He has been through a hell of a lot more as an athlete than a lot of people have at his stage. He’s probably going to have to go through a lot more now that he’s playing.”

All of that traveling from school to school, competing for playing time, taught Minshew how to become the starter. Not just a stopgap guy.

“Going to different schools and learning the right way to step in and try to lead,” Minshew said of his assimilation into the starting job. “And that’s through going in and earning respect and not demanding respect. Earn it with how you work, with your habits, everything like that, instead of just going in, and talking and being loud. So, that’s been one thing that’s served me well through my whole career.”

Where Do the Jaguars’ Wins Come From

Every team is ready to win going into the first week of the season. A lot of teams think they can be good. A few know they’re good.

For the Jaguars, thinking they can be good might be half the battle after last season’s collapse. If there’s a flaw in their thinking, it’s what they “expect” to happen with about half of their roster.

Hope is not a strategy. Yet it seems the Jaguars are ‘hoping’ a lot of different things will fall into place. Nobody says ‘hope’ any longer when talking about their team, but “expecting to” or “anticipating” something are the euphemisms you hear coaches and personnel decision-makers use.

I don’t think there is any question that the Jaguars Oline will be the key to their success on offense. That’s the case with most teams but injuries on offense and specifically up front in 2018 eliminated any chance of success for the Jaguars.

So what’s the plan this year?

It appears the Jaguars are “expecting” Cam Robinson, Andrew Norwell and Brandon Linder, all lost last year to injuries, to return to their previous form. They barely played in the preseason, as the Jaguars plan for this training camp was to get as many players to the regular season healthy and ready to play.

At wide receiver, the Jaguars are “anticipating” Dede Westbrook and D.J. Chark to blossom into their potential and Marqise Lee to return to the player he was before last year’s knee injury. They’re also “expecting” Chris Conley to bring some consistency to that position and Keelan Cole to be the player he was in 2017 and the clock not strike midnight on him as it did last year. At tight end, new faces will be “expected” to block and catch in a fashion the Jaguars haven’t had in a while.

Admittedly, Leonard Fournette looks like the player he was as a rookie. He reported in shape and has the quickness at around 220lbs as well as the power that he misses at 230. He might be a three-down back this year, coming out of the backfield on third down. He can be a star. But behind him the backups at running back don’t have much, if any, NFL experience so the team is “expecting” them to be able to do the job if called on.

Even at quarterback, as much as there is to like about Nick Foles, he’s an unknown quantity over 16 games. Coming off the bench and leading an already solid team, he took the Eagles to the Super Bowl and was named the MVP. Signing him in the offseason shows that the Jaguars are “anticipating” him being that player for a whole season. Behind him I like Gardner Minshew developing in his first year, but as a rookie, he won’t be the answer for anything but the short term if Foles can’t play.

So on offense, the Jaguars are really an unknown quantity. If all of those things they’re “anticipating” or “expecting” happen, they’ll be fine. But there are a lot of moving parts in that equation.

On defense it’s almost exactly the opposite. This defense is built to win now. The Jaguars aren’t “expecting” or “anticipating” anything to happen. They know Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye might be the best cornerback tandem in the league. They know Calais Campbell and Yannick Ngakoue can stop the run and get to the quarterback. They’ve seen the upside in Josh Allen. They gave Myles Jack a contract extension to keep playing like he has. They have some holes to fill at linebacker and their safeties are untested over a full season. But this is a defense you can win with.

And they’ll have to play just like the Jaguars are “expecting.” Only because that’s how the team is built.

Executive Vice President Tom Coughlin has said he wants the Jaguars to stop the run, get to the quarterback, run the ball and be successful a with play-action passing game. That means keeping the score down, controlling the ball and the clock on offense and limiting the opposition’s offense to a couple of possessions per quarter at most.

Clearly this team is built to beat teams in the AFC South. With Andrew Luck’s retirement, the Jaguars will be the favorites to beat the Colts both times they line up. Without Lamar Miller, the Texans will have to figure out a running game and rely more on Deshaun Watson. And the Titans will lean on Derrick Henry and Marcus Mariotta and the Jaguars know that. Plus their three-time Pro-Bowl tackle Taylor Lewan is out for the first four games of the year, including week three vs. the Jaguars.

Does that beat the Chiefs? Kansas City is a team built to score points from all kinds of angles and in bunches. They’re where the league is heading. Only if the Jaguars defense does their job, and they probably need to score some points, do the Jaguars come away from Week One with a win.

Not trying to be “Debbie Downer” here but that’ll be the theme throughout their schedule. Nine wins could win the division, which means stealing one or two on the road in Charlotte, Cincinnati, Oakland or Denver and winning games at home against the Chiefs and Saints where they’ll be underdogs to get to that number.

At least this team should make it interesting into December.

I “hope” it all works.