Jacksonville Jaguars Media Conference

Sunday, October 10, 2021

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Kevin Byard

Visitors Postgame Press Conference


Tennessee Titans 37 - Jacksonville Jaguars - 19

Q. How did it feel to pick up the ball and see nothing but the end zone in front of you?

KEVIN BYARD: Felt great, man. Got my first NFL touchdown. It's been a long time coming. I just decided to make a play. I mean, you guys just talked to Elijah. He made a great play, almost like landed over top of the ball. I had to kind of grasp it and just popped up and was able to sprint to the end zone. Great to pop off the game like, was super excited, but next two plays, big play and they score, so consistency, you know.

Q. Will they save the ball for you? And if so, what will you do with it?

KEVIN BYARD: I save all my turnovers. I mean I got a lot of them in my closet right now. Honestly, I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I have an idea when I retire and I get all my turnovers and stuff like that. I think I'm going to make me like a leather couch. You know what I'm saying? I got a lot, so I think I might do like a leather chair or something, some custom. I'm trying to find someone who can do something for me.

Q. Have you had a defensive touchdown before? I know you said you haven't had one in the league, but like maybe in college? High school? When is the last time?

KEVIN BYARD: I didn't have any in high school defensively, but I had four pick sixes in college. So like I said, it's been a long time coming. Just excited to get my first touchdown.

Q. What was the last week for you coming off the Jets game? And with that in mind, how important was it to win this game and kind of change the subject and get things going the other direction?

KEVIN BYARD: I mean it was a must-win for us. This is a division game. We understand that all our division games are must-win, going to be tough. The Jets, like I said, kind of came off an emotional roller coaster losing to Jets, but I kind of talked about it over the first couple of days, we had to flush it and get ready for Jacksonville Jaguars. Not going to apologize for winning. Obviously it wasn't pretty, wasn't perfect at all. We got a lot of stuff we need to clean up, but happy to get a win down here in Duval.

Q. The third down (indiscernible).

KEVIN BYARD: Anytime we can get teams in third and long and keep them out of third and short, we're going to be pretty successful in third down defense, like I've been talking about all off season. Communication has been better. The execution, the pass rush, the coverage, everything has been great. We just have to make sure that we can get them in third and longs. We have to be better on first and second downs. I think on those drives that you're seeing teams are driving all the way down the field they're getting big plays on first and second downs. We're not forcing them into third and manageable for us. So that's something we have to continue to improve on.

Q. A bunch of yards today. I don't know what exactly it was. What was happening? He averaged 8.3 per carry.

KEVIN BYARD: Honestly, I think James Roberson is one of the more underrated running backs in this league. We saw him last year get over a thousand. He'll probably get over a thousand again this year. He's a really good running back, good vision. He has real good like center of gravity, Alva Camaro like, small, compact, strong. But I don't think as a defense overall, we just didn't tackle well enough today. Gave up some big plays on missed tackles. Stuff we gotta clean up.

Q. You've faced this Jaguars team a lot. With Trevor at quarterback, what sort of differences do you see on their offense this year that maybe they hadn't had before?

KEVIN BYARD: My first two years, obviously it was Blake Bortles and it was a really good defense. The offense really wasn't good at all. They was kind of leaning on their defense. As of now you can see that -- their defense still is pretty good, but they can score points in a hurry. Trevor Lawrence, my first time playing him, but I think he's going to be a heavy quarterback in the league. It's going to be exciting to play him for the years to come. But they're going to keep getting better. We knew that they was going to be a pretty good offense and they wasn't going to lay down once we got up on them. But I think, like I said, for him and the running back and Shenault and Ten -- I think we did a good job of containing them at times, but just not consistently enough.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
113451-3-1234 2021-10-10 21:39:00 GMT

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