Former Jacksonville Jaguars and local sports radio host, Leon Searcy, joined us last Sunday for a special edition of the “Jags Den Podcast” to discuss the Jags Legends Top Golf charity tournament, which will be on April 28 at the St. Johns Town Center. In the process, he was also kind enough to talk some football with us and shared his takes on many Jag related topics like the state of their offensive line, their draft direction, some stories from his time on the team and much more.
Here is a transcribed version of the key topics from last Sunday’s recording, which made for one of the more interesting episodes of the “Jags Den Podcast” yet.
Jags Wire: As a former offensive lineman, we figured you would be the perfect person to ask. We feel that there is a misconception that the offensive line had a lot to do with the demise of Blake Bortles, but when healthy they kept him upright in 2017 as we saw on that epic run. Of course, the unit fell victim to injuries in 2018, but when 100 percent, as they will be in 2019, what do you think of the starting offensive line unit?
Leon Searcy: Well, the offensive line, for the most part, were decimated last year. In 2017, when Leonard Fournette was running well, the offensive line for the most part stayed healthy and didn’t have any guys with key injuries. When you deal with a 16 game season, you want to keep the offensive line healthy — and in 2017, they were healthy for the most part, while in 2018 they were decimated.
I mean, Cam Robinson blew out his ACL during the second game of the season. Then we had issues with Andrew Norwell and his ankle. Brandon Linder, the center, blew out his ACL in the middle of the season. The only guy who was really healthy was A.J. Cann, who was the right guard while [Jermey] Parnell struggled with injuries as well. As much as you give attention to the quarterback, running backs and the receivers, if your offensive line is depleted your team is going to struggle.
Another issue was that the offensive lineman didn’t have any real depth, so they didn’t really have any guys that could step in. Hopefully, we get those guys [the starters] back healthy (which would be three fifths of the group) for the regular season. So the key [in 2019] will be to keep the offensive line healthy if you want your offense to be productive.
JW: Right now the Jags technically have Will Richardson penciled in as the starting right tackle. What are your thoughts on what he brings to the table, because we didn’t get a chance to see a lot of him in his rookie season?
LS: Well, it’s hard to have any expectations on a guy you’ve never seen play to be quite honest. Until he gets on the field I can’t make a fair analysis on him, because right now he’s just a guy. He has the potential and they drafted him in the fourth-round a year back, but I haven’t seen enough film on him to give him a fair evaluation.
But, they lost Parnell, who was a little long in the tooth as a right tackle, and that’s the reason why the Jags let him go because they were trying to look for a younger guy. When you look at a lot of mock drafts right now, they have Jawaan Taylor going at the No. 7 pick to Jacksonville at right tackle. I’ve seen him on film and he’s a brute right tackle. If you bring him in, he’s the type of guy you could plug it right then and there Week 1. So, on Will Richardson, I can’t really give a fair evaluation. However, he does provide you with depth and he is young and has potential, but the fact that he hasn’t started a game yet means that he’s just a guy until I actually see him perform Week 1.
JW: You mentioned Jawaan Taylor earlier as an option for the No. 7 pick. Is that the direction you feel they should go personally, or do you feel there is another offensive lineman worth taking there?
LS: Well, you know I’m not going to bad mouth Taylor because I do mentor him right now. I’ve been mentoring him over the last couple of weeks and talking to him about the process of being a potential first-round pick, and I kind of give these guys an assessment of what to expect moving forward. But in my evaluation of right tackles, unless you can say that Taylor is going to be a Lane Johnson [of the Philadelphia Eagles], who is a perennial three-time All-Pro, I don’t think you take a right tackle that high in the draft.
Me personally and my assessment is that if you take an offensive lineman, it should be a left tackle and move Cam Robinson to right. I’m not really a big fan of Cam Robinson playing left tackle right now. I mean, I know he was a rookie [in 2017] and I’m kind of hard on offensive lineman when it comes to them, but his fundamentals and techniques are flawed. Granted he’s only played two years in the league, but I think he would be more of an asset to the Jaguars if you move him to right tackle and then draft a left tackle at No. 7. Now you’ve got your bookends to protect Nick Foles moving forward.
I tell people this all the time. The reason why Robinson’s techniques are flawed — in a sense — is because coming out of Alabama essentially every time he played against somebody he was better than them. But when you get to the next level, if your techniques and fundamentals aren’t on point you can get exposed. He got exposed as a rookie and it’s rare that a rookie comes in as a starter in the NFL, so he did an adequate job, but It’s just a lot of stuff that I see in his techniques and fundamentals that need to be improved upon moving forward if he’s going to continue to stay at left tackle. Also, he’s coming off an injury to his left leg, his ACL, which is his kick and plant leg. That’s his maneuverable leg when it comes to speed rushes and all that kind of stuff.
JW: Since everyone has one, what’s your best Tom Coughlin story during your tenure with the Jags?
LS: Oh lord! My favorite Tom Coughlin story actually happened in my first year in Jacksonville. Everybody has heard about what most called ‘camp hell.’ He had all these rules and regulations of what we couldn’t do and whatever. So on more occasions than one I used to do stuff to get fined and tick him off because I was making a boatload of money anyway.
But my favorite Coughlin story was from my first year when we were 3-6 and I was coming from a team [the Pittsburgh Steelers] that had previously played in the Super Bowl into a 3-6 situation nine games into the season. So I come into the locker room and there’s a note on my stool and it says ‘please see coach.’ Back then we used to call coach Coughlin ‘the principal,’ so I was like ‘Oh man, I have to go to the principal’s office.’ So I pick up the note and go to his office and he comes in the office. He had this chair that you sit in that swoops down so it looks like he’s standing over you. So I sit down and he says ‘Leon how do you think you’re playing this year?’ I said ‘I think I’m playing average coach.’ His reply was ‘You’re damn right you’re playing average.’ He continued on to say ‘We didn’t pay you all of this money to play average, why aren’t you playing better?’ I said ‘Well coach, we’re struggling a little bit.’ He says ‘Leon why are you out past midnight?’ I said ‘Huh?’ He says ‘We have people who follow you around and have seen you out past midnight.’ He added ‘What could you possibly be celebrating when we’re 3-6?’ I replied ‘I’m grown coach, what are you talking about?’ He says ‘Well you’re grown but you’re one of the leaders of this football team and you can’t be seen about in the clubs of Jacksonville when we’re losing.’ I said ‘The reason we’re losing is because we don’t have any legs, coach, and the reason we’re losing these close games is because you’re dragging this team down [with full padded Friday practice sessions]. You need to let up on the players a little and we’ll start winning some games.’ To make a long story short, we were 3-6 in 1996 and turned it around by winning six-of-seven games, went to the playoffs and made the AFC championship game.
Now he would never til this day give me credit for that, but I gave him that speech. I gave him that speech about letting up on the players and giving us some legs so we could play and we ultimately made that run down to the playoffs and beat Buffalo, then Denver and went to the AFC championship game.
We also had some off-script questions with Searcy which we asked including his thoughts on Nick Foles, how he gave Jimmy Smith the nickname J-Smooth and more! That all can be heard in the audio below.
