Tuesday morning, Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone spoke to the media ahead of the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. One of the first questions asked in the press conference was about how the team will deal with having two back-to-back games in London in the upcoming season.
As he has done throughout his time in Jacksonville, Marrone was as candid as possible in his response. He said his top priority will be to make the players comfortable as the team will be away from their families for over a week (10 days).
WATCH LIVE: Head Coach Doug Marrone meets with the media at the 2020 #NFLCombine. https://t.co/VxqTZGt8vz
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“We’re looking at things first and foremost to make sure our players are good,” Marrone said. “That’s the first thing we’ve been talking about, looking at, and investigating. You know, making things right for our players.”
Whilst this is the first time in NFL history that a team will play back-to-back games in London, he did note that teams have stayed on the West Coast between two cross-country games and have reached out to them to understand how the process of such a trip works logistically.
The Jaguars have a turbulent history with international fixtures, only winning three of the seven games they’ve played at Wembley Stadium. Despite that, Marrone is keen to make London “an advantage” and is looking to shift the Jaguars’ approach to the international series in hopes of more favorable results.
“I’ve done it a lot of different ways,” Marrone said. “I’ve been out there a whole week where we played on a Sunday when I was with New Orleans and immediately after the game we flew to London and stayed there the whole week. […] What I’m trying to do is go back to that experience when we flew out after that Sunday game. I’ll reach out to coach [Sean] Payton just to kind of get a reminder of what we did.”
The Saints beat the Chargers during their first trip to London and Marrone added that he knows it’s a performance-based business where he’ll need to provide the right results regardless of how hard the traveling schedule is.
“Any time you win you look back and say, OK, what did we do there? Let’s do the same thing,” Marrone said of the Saints approach to London in the past. “If you lose, you want to make sure you change it up.”
In addition to having empathy for the disruption that an added London game will bring to his players, Marrone also showed an understanding of the strain that the news has put on local fans. He’s stated that he’s even had a chance to talk to fans in person while being out in the community this offseason.
“I get a chance to connect and talk to the fan who is doing everything they can to get the season ticket and enjoy the games,” Marrone said. “I have a great amount of empathy for the challenges they have. I look at it as a challenge for our fans, coaches, and players to sustain our team in Jacksonville. If that’s what we have to do, then it’s just what we have to do. […] I think for the fans who can afford to go out there, it’s going to be an outstanding trip. For those who can’t, hopefully, my goal is to win games and we can help them at the end of the year and get some home [playoff] games.”
Of course, the last time the Jags hosted a playoff game was during the 2017 season when they defeated the Buffalo Bills in the wildcard round, and clearly, Marrone believes they can get back to that point. If he can win the two international games this season, it would certainly help the Jags’ playoff chances as they haven’t quite been able to handle their business these past two seasons in the United Kingdom.