PROUD TO BE UNDERDOGS
Jaguars don’t mind their lowly status against Pats
FOXBORO, Mass. — The Jaguars knew the disrespectful predictions would flow all week again.
Just as few gave Jacksonville a chance last week at Pittsburgh in an AFC divisional playoff, so the Patriots are more than a touchdown favourite and just about everybody’s pick to knock off the Jags on Sunday — to win another AFC championship and advance to their eighth Super Bowl this century.
“That OK. That’s OK. I’m looking forward to it,” defensive end Calais Campbell said about being underdogs again, in the Jaguars’ boisterous locker-room at Heinz Field following their convincing 45-42 win over the Steelers.
“You’ve got to keep it low key, though. You can’t make it a big deal, because then it goes back and forth. So just internalize it, be quiet about it, and use that to drive you every day in practice. We did that (against Pittsburgh) and found a way to win.”
New England began the week as a 9- or 9½-point favourite.
The betting line dropped to as low as seven late in the week, after Pats QB Tom Brady injured his right hand in practice. Insider reports, though, say Brady looked great at Friday’s practice and is expected to play without much hindrance on Sunday.
The Jaguars punished the Steelers for their lack of focus, lack of respect and overconfidence. Head coach Bill Belichick won’t ever allow the Patriots to fall into that trap, even if almost everyone else dismiss Jacksonville’s chances.
Probably to a man, the Jaguars would not see their 13th victory of the season as an upset.
“We feel we belong here,” said Campbell, who led the AFC with 14.5 sacks in his 10th season and first in Jacksonville, after nine in Arizona. “We worked hard to be here and we feel like nobody worked harder than us, so we feel like we deserved this.
“Now we’ve got another big game to fight for. I guarantee nobody’s going to give us a chance. We have to go out there and find a way. I believe in this team, and I’m confident that if we play the way we can play, we can beat anybody.”
Telvin Smith, the Jacksonville defence’s super-speedy linebacker and self-styled brash, bombastic vocal leader, sounded like he meant it when he said after the Pittsburgh game, “We know who we are ... We’re a real family. We’ve got real warriors in here ... We’re fighting for each other (like it’s) life or death.
“Everybody always says, ‘the Jacksonville stigma’ or whatever. We’re just going to keep playing. We’re going to keep dominating and kicking ass and taking names.”
If not to so cocky a degree, in interview after interview Jaguars players for weeks have cited the same time-chewed cliché — that nobody works as hard as they do, or is as tight in the locker-room as they are.
Maybe. But winning is the elixir that often convinces players of this, in any sport.
It’s probably not true very often. These Jags sure seem to believe it. Holdover veterans and newcomers alike this season have professed to be convinced something special indeed is happening on this team, this year, in their locker-room.
Rookie defensive tackle from Ottawa, Eli Ankou, got waived by the Houston Texans after training camp, after signing with them as an undrafted free agent in April. The Jaguars claimed him the next day.
“The moment I got here from the Texans, what I noticed about the vibe in the locker-room was this, like, supreme confidence,” Ankou said. “People trusted in the amount of work that they put in. They trusted each other, and that was when I was, like, really on board.”
It was a decided difference from the Texans locker-room vibe, Ankou said — no offence intended.
“Then the wins started stacking up and, yeah, we did beat the Steelers early on. Was I surprised? Not really. Because that’s a big part of the potion the whole time — a product of the work we put in. Then we just keep applying it.”
Campbell, 31, said he’s been hammering hard that very point all season.
“We’ve just got to attack it the same way we always do,” he said. “Go back home, go to practice, attack it day by day, and get out there and execute what we practised.”
The morning after the Jags edged the Buffalo Bills on Jan. 7 in the AFC wild-card playoff round, the team locker-room was packed with players during the 45-minute media-access window. That’s not a common sight the morning after a game, but numerous players insisted it was nothing out of the ordinary for them this year.
“Guys are back to work today, as you can see,” Ankou said. “We have to work. We have a vision of where we want to be, and we have to put in the work. Everybody’s on board, and we have to be. We love to do it, too. Otherwise we wouldn’t have ended up where we are.”
On Friday, first-year Jags head coach Doug Marrone was asked what made him so confident his team could get this far.
“I know that when I see something a certain way and people coming together (with) a work ethic and accountability, you have a chance,” Marrone said. “I don’t know if you ever feel like, ‘Hey, we’re going to be “this.”’ You just know you have a chance.
“It’s not rocket science. If you just come together, you work and believe in what you’re doing is right, you have a chance to be successful.”
And to shock a whole lot of people.