AFC Notes: Coaching Buzz, No. 1 Pick, Jaguars, Texans, Titans

Jaguars

• ESPN’s Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler note there’s a sense in certain league circles that Lions OC Ben Johnson would want to bring his own personnel lead to whichever head coaching job he takes, which complicates things for interested teams like the Jaguars.
• Graziano adds there’s a lot of skepticism that any of the prospective coaching candidates on the market have the cache to force Jaguars owner Shad Khan to fire GM Trent Baalke.
• Fowler expects the Jaguars to target a first-time head coach with a background as an offensive play-caller who is comfortable working under Baalke. 

Texans 

The Texans’ upcoming AFC Wild Card game against the Chargers will reunite Houston CB Kamari Lassiter and Los Angeles WR Ladd McConkey after playing alongside each other during their college career at Georgia. 

“Everything is coming full circle,” Lassiter said, via Aaron Wilson. “Really excited to play against him. Just excited to see him at this level and see myself at this level. That’s something we dreamed of. We had some good battles in college. Saturday, I expect nothing less.”

Lassiter elaborated on his close relationship with McConkey. 

“Ladd is a great person,” Lassiter said. “Really good person, I’ve got nothing but good things to say. That’s my brother. We go way back. We trained together in the middle of nowhere in Florida for three months. Ladd is one of my good friends, but he’s an even better football player. He came up from nothing, really. He was a walk-on, paved his own way, started on the scout team and then got drafted in the second round.”

Texans DC Matt Burke highly praised McConkey’s sharp route-running and becoming Las Angeles’ “go-to” receiver.  

“He’s a really good player, he’s proven that,” Burke said. “Obviously, had a good season. Formed a connection with the quarterback pretty early, obviously, you can see that. Very crisp route runner. Very sharp breaks, top of the routes, has it all in his bag, in breaks, out breaks, a lot of option stuff with him. So, hard to just pick one leverage with him, because he can run it all. So, for sure, he’s done a good job. He’s obviously kind of become the go-to guy for them, especially in some of the critical situations. And then we’ll just see how we take care of him.”

Titans

Titans HC Brian Callahan said the silver lining to having a disappointing season is the fact that the team secured the first-overall pick.

“It’s not a position I’d ever want to be in again,” Callahan said, via PFT. “But there is the benefit of that is it does open up some opportunities for you to try to improve your football team. Not only that you get the first pick, you get the first pick in the rounds after that as well. So you do have a chance to improve your team. I’ve seen it done. I’ve been a part of it. It is the one bonus to a season like this. And, again, not one I ever want to be a part of again. But we are here and can use it to our advantage to improve our team as best we can.”

• Former Bengals DC Lou Anarumo is a candidate to join Callahan’s staff in Tennessee. (Terry McCormick)