Jaguars 26, Panthers 0
CHRIS TABOR: I'll just go over injuries very quick. Cade had a finger, did not finish. Marquis Haynes is actually being further evaluated for a concussion, so that is where he's at right now. Then obviously Pineiro did not play, had a little hamstring there.
With that, I'll answer any questions.
Q. With Marquis, is he just being evaluated here?
CHRIS TABOR: He is. That stuff is still pending right now.
Q. You don't know if he'll be able to fly back?
CHRIS TABOR: I do not. Not at this time.
Q. How did Eddy's situation play out?
CHRIS TABOR: We were in pregame warmup, and we went through our normal deal, and at the end of the warmup he felt a little grab in the back of his leg. Tried to get some more work done on it, and in pregame -- we had a plan there then that hopefully maybe be able to go inside of 40, maybe even 30, extra point type deal, and keep with Kamu kicking off there. It never got any better, so obviously when there's only one kicker on your 48, that's a tough deal.
Q. You had one the first drive which would have been a 39-yarder. Any thought there?
CHRIS TABOR: There was thought, and it's a tough spot. You know, it's kind of one of those, which way are you going to go with it. We were moving the football well, so I was just going to try to ride that out.
Q. Just to clarify, with Marquis, is he being evaluated here in this building or somewhere else?
CHRIS TABOR: At the hospital is my understanding.
Q. For a concussion, nothing neck related?
CHRIS TABOR: No, for a concussion.
Q. The first time this team has been shut out in 22 years; did you feel at any point today that -- did you question the effort?
CHRIS TABOR: I'm disappointed, obviously, and that's a pretty generic answer. Did not see it coming. I will tip my hat to the Jaguars.
But the way we were trending, I did not see this performance coming down. It kind of goes back to the first drive deal whether you wanted to kick maybe a possible field goal there with a backup or with your offense. The way we were moving the ball and I'm kind of thinking about how we finished the Green Bay game and all those things, I had a lot of confidence in those guys and doing that. We never got on track. We talked a lot about starting fast this week, and we did not do that.
We've got one more opportunity. I talk to the guys a lot about really -- it's going to boil down to you talk about the shut-out and those things, I get that. How are you going to deal with it? There's only two choices. It's either character or compromise. Those are questions for everybody.
I think we're going to go back to work. They're not going to cancel the last game. Plan on going through the process again and expect our players to go through the process.
I have confidence that they will do that, but we've got one more chance to right the wrong, so to speak.
Q. In addition to Eddy, how did the decision go with JC pregame in terms of activating him?
CHRIS TABOR: Right, he did some stuff early on and tested it and as we got closer to game time felt like it wasn't going. We made a move there with Shaq, and JC obviously was available if need be.
Q. Why wasn't CJ available?
CHRIS TABOR: Because we had already made the inactives. This was after the inactives.
Q. What has gone into CJ not being on the roster as healthy for game days?
CHRIS TABOR: We elected not to put him up today.
Q. The moment where Bryce went down, I think it was the early sack where he was down for a moment, you weren't sure of the severity of his injury, what was the process in deciding to have him return to the game?
CHRIS TABOR: He was back, and they said he was cleared to play, and we put him right back out there.
Q. What was the issue?
CHRIS TABOR: He took a little shot to the back.
Q. Lower back?
CHRIS TABOR: Yes, that's my understanding.
Q. With that in mind, he took a pretty hard beating today. Was there anything in particular they were doing?
CHRIS TABOR: I think what happened was is we never -- if you look statistically, it's definitely not where you want to be. So that would say that we never got in a rhythm, form. It wasn't good. What did we have, 124 yards of total offense? That's going to be tough to win games when you do that.
Q. Kind of in general, if this ends up clinching the No. 1 pick for the Bears, how do you digest all of this on what you said was a disappointing day?
CHRIS TABOR: Like I'm not concerned about the Bears' first pick. I'm really not. I'm focused in on what happened today and why did it go wrong.
Now what I'm going to do is I have another opportunity to come back -- everybody, the storylines that you want to write, I get all that. But I'm going to stay true to myself on the process, another opportunity, and whatever is written is written. But I know that if I shortchange myself next week, then I've compromised.
What I have to do as a coach in leading this team at this moment is make sure that we're pros, be a pro, do things right, and be on time and do those things and go through the process to give ourselves a chance. No question, did not play well today. I won't hide from that. I won't run from that. But what I will run to is let's go next week and let's play. I still have confidence in those guys.
As I've always said, coaching is about relationships. I am not going to shortchange those guys, and I think they'll do the same.
I'm excited for the opportunity next week.
Q. Your players have applauded you for being the same guy throughout this process. Why do you think there have been so many ups and downs just this season and maybe during this run you've had as the interim head coach just from a execution standpoint?
CHRIS TABOR: Well, I think didn't play well today. I think I can say in those other games that we have. So I'm disappointed. I'm going to look at myself first, and what do we need to do in order to fix that for this last opportunity.
I have to be the same guy. I don't think a player wants to play for a guy that's high one week and low the next week. He wants consistency. That's what I want because I think if you can get consistency, then obviously it'll breed itself later on.
We'll stay the course. We lost today bad. Got it. I'm okay with that. Not okay with that; let me take that back. We're going to move on and come out swinging the next week. There's going to be zero quit in this deal. We are going to keep fighting. We are going to keep going. That's all we can do because those are our two choices, either character or compromise. I don't think none of you would want to compromise your job and shortchange yourself and say, oh, we'll just wait until next year. We're going to step up, dust off our tail a little bit, and go back to work.
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