Doug Pederson believes he still has the backing of Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan despite the team’s heavy defeat to the Chicago Bears in London on Sunday.
The Jags slumped to 1-5 on the year as they were marred by costly penalties and mistakes while surrendering four touchdown passes to the exceptional Caleb Williams in a 35-16 defeat to the Chicago Bears.
Pederson was asked during his press conference whether he felt he still had the backing of owner Khan, who had underlined his support for his head coach and general manager Trent Baalke during an interview with the Florida Times-Union on Saturday.
“I do. I was just with him, and I do,” he told reporters.
Jacksonville will now stay in the UK as they prepare to take on the New England Patriots at Wembley Stadium next Sunday, Pederson admitting it is likely a must-win matchup.
“I think so,” said Pederson. “I would say everything here on out, quite frankly. If we want to get back to playing the type of football we know we can play, you’re going to have to win a lot of games moving forward. I would say that, yeah, these games moving forward are just that.
“I feel for the players and the coaches. We work extremely too hard to be in this position. I feel like the guys, they don’t quit. They keep fighting.
“We have to figure out how to just get out of our way and just play football. I say that, and it sounds easy, but it’s tough. It’s a tough game to play. We didn’t expect to be here in this spot, and, hey, now we have to find a way to get out of it.”
Jags quarterback Trevor Lawrence also insisted the locker room remains behind head coach Pederson amid the team’s disappointing start to the campaign, which leaves at the bottom of the AFC South.
“Yeah, that’s our head coach, and we’re a team,” he said. “This is tough. Losing is hard. It’s hard. So it has nothing to do with that relationship, how we feel about Coach (Pederson). We’re a group. We’re staying together. We know brighter days are ahead.
“We just have to keep working, and we have to keep putting our best foot forward. You know, we just have to stick together as a team. We have to play more complementary. We’re not playing good team football right now. So whatever the answer to that is we have to find it quick. Yeah, no thought of that on my mind.”
The Jaguars gave up eight penalties for 43 yards on the day, notably including three during a second-half drive that would end in Keenan Allen’s three-yard touchdown catch to make it 28-10 just moments after Gabe Davis’ score had given Jacksonville hope.
Within that had been an unforgivable penalty for having too many men on the field on third-and-long, somewhat typifying the Jaguars’ season.
“Those are penalties that really hurt,” said Pederson. “Taking nothing away from the players. They’re playing hard. They’re putting everything out on the field.
“We keep talking. We’ll just keep showing them. We had the 12 men on the field, and there was a substitution change. I put that one us as coaches. That’s on us.
“So, everybody has a piece of this. It’s not just coaching, not just players. It’s all of us, and that’s where it has to start.”
Pederson acknowledged the need for his team to handle in-game adversity better, with early mistakes snowballing into another error-ridden game that would leave the Jaguars playing catch-up.
“Those are things that we have,” he said. “That’s kind of the obvious, right? Right now, those are things that are plaguing us. It’s the mistakes and then being able to overcome the mistake. Those are things that we have to obviously take a look at and correct.”
Despite his side’s start, Lawrence reiterated the belief the Jaguars can still turn their campaign around.
“We got 11 more games, so there’s definitely a way back,” he said. “We’ve got to – pumping us up isn’t going to do anything up here, so we have to take care of business on our end. But, yeah, it’s a long season, and we have a lot of football left.”
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