The Jacksonville Jaguars were feeling themselves Sunday night after beating the New England Patriots.
Jacksonville dominated the Patriots in all three phases en route to a convincing 31-20 Week 2 victory at TIAA Bank Field. And after the game, the Jaguars, as they so often do, talked a ton of trash.
Boston Sports Journal’s Greg Bedard spoke with multiple Jaguars players after the game, with each singing a similar tune.
Tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins, on his goal-line touchdown before halftime: “It was going to be man-to-man coverage, we knew, I was going to whup (Patrick Chung’s) ass and I was going to score. … Same s–t, simple s–t. Man-to-man coverage. They thought they could beat us man to man. They thought wrong.”
” … We knew we were better. We knew we were going to beat them. Simple as that. It’s just another game to us.”
Seferian-Jenkins, who’s played against New England as a member of the New York Jets and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, isn’t scared of Bill Belichick’s defense.
“I don’t really care,” he told Bedard. “They get new players every year, they have good coaches, they play man-to-man and whoever starts beating their ass, they go to zone. They’re smart, they make different personnel packages, move people different places. … I don’t know. We know what they’re doing (and) we’re better at it.”
Linebacker Tevin Smith on the Patriots offense: “Ain’t nobody scared of nothing. We’re taking on all challengers in every single way. We say we’re the best. We’re not trying to shy away from that. What we do (defensively). It’s easy. But score on us. You know what we’re doing. Score on us.”
Smith also believes that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady “knows” the Jags are better than the Pats.
“At the end of the day, I think he knew,” Smith said. “That’s the mindset that we have around here, that we’re the best. Prove that we’re not. We don’t care that you all beat us last time. We know we’re the best team, we have to go out and execute and that’s what we did.”
Listen: The Jaguars have every right to be confident. They looked like the better team Sunday, and you could make the case they were the better team in last season’s AFC Championship Game.
Furthermore, trash talk and swagger can be a weapon for some teams. It certainly worked for the Seattle Seahawks during their run of dominance, and the Jaguars similarly seem to feed off their brash confidence.
Still, if we’ve learned anything about the Patriots, it’s that judging them after two games is foolish. The Jaguars might want to simmer down and not act like they won the Super Bowl in Week 2.
Then again, it’s hard to argue against the way they’re currently doing things.
