Jaguars HC Doug Marrone: ‘We’re not playing with a lot of confidence’

Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone addressed the media on Monday and discussed a variety of topics, including the team’s apparent lack of confidence. After dropping their fifth-straight game 45-10 to the Los Angeles Chargers, the team looks apathetic at times, with a ‘here we go again’ mentality.

At 4-9, the Jaguars are eliminated from the playoff picture, with very little to play for besides pride and the love for the game.

“We’re not playing with a lot of confidence,” Marrone said on Monday via conference call. “We have to coach with better confidence, we have to play with better confidence and that’s my responsibility.”

Surrendering 525 yards of total offense to a team that hadn’t shown the firepower they were accustomed to in the past is unfathomable. After the first quarter, the Jaguars did not have any sort of handle on the game, and Marrone puts that on himself, as he has done throughout the season.

The key, Marrone says, will be to gain confidence throughout the week and to keep fighting. Without a victory, it is tough to be confident on game day with a five-game losing streak looming over your shoulder.

“It comes with winning football games and we haven’t done that for five-straight [games]. So, you can’t just look ahead and say, ‘Hey, we have to win a game to build this confidence,’ How do you do it during the week so you can go out there and have a better performance. And it starts with me, to the coaches, and then on to the players.”

The Jaguars have three games remaining on their schedule against the Oakland Raiders, Atlanta Falcons, and the Indianapolis Colts. All three teams are on a downwards trajectory, and the Jaguars will hope to ignite their team, even in a lost season.

Changes will be coming for Jacksonville following the season — or perhaps before, but for now, the team will have to go out and fight whether it be for pride, or for their own to make a team entering next season.

“There’s a lot of words that can describe how we feel, but we don’t have that opportunity to sit back and feel sorry for ourselves. We have to go; we have to fight. Every day we’re earning something and every day we have to build this thing back to where we can go out there, and play with confidence, and coach with confidence and that starts with me.”