AFC Notes: Colts, Jaguars, Titans, Malik Willis

Colts

Colts LB Shaquille Leonard is thankful that interim HC Jeff Saturday was able to see through his tough exterior in order to realize that another back surgery was required for him this year.

“I thank Jeff,” Leonard said, via James Boyd of The Athletic. “If it wasn’t for Jeff, I probably still wouldn’t know (what was going on).”

Leonard then suffered a setback in practice prior to Saturday’s first game against the Raiders in Week 10.

“Right then he said, ‘Bro, I’m shutting you down. I want you to go check your back out,’” Leonard said. “And then once we saw the MRI, we knew that it was time to go get another surgery and I just thank him. Because I was gonna continue to put my body on the line when I shouldn’t and sometimes you gotta protect the player from himself. I commend Jeff for that and I’m thankful that Jeff came here. I was making it worse.”

“At first you got a lot of questions that a lot of people can’t answer because they’ve never been through it,” Leonard added. “And when Jeff came in and he’s had a similar injury (to his hand), it made me feel like, ‘Alright, cool, I have someone I can talk to about it.’ I was just happy to finally talk to someone who had a nerve injury and have them tell me, ‘Hey, I got back. You will be back.’ That’s what I was praying to hear.”

“I have zero doubt in my mind that I won’t be back to being me. I know that I will,” Leonard continued. “I just can’t wait to come back out here and just compete and prove everybody wrong. I got a lot of screenshots and I got a lot of liked tweets.”

Jaguars

Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence believes the team’s offense is still in a good position despite a down performance against Tennessee.

“That’s going to happen from week to week,” Lawrence said, via Jags Wire. “There’s always going to be stuff to clean up, but I think minus a few plays, I think if a few plays go differently, if we’re a little sharper, or in my case, hit a couple throws, the game looks a lot different. We’ve just had a few too many of those, but I still think our offense is in a great spot, and the progress we’ve made is still there. Just continue to build off of it.”

Titans

Titans third-round QB Malik Willis said that he is looking to learn from the mistakes he committed during his rookie season in the NFL.

“Nobody is perfect. So, you just always have to learn from whatever mistakes you make,” Willis said, via Jim Wyatt of the team’s official site. “You see guys making mistakes that have been playing quarterback for 10 years. I have been playing quarterback for a year (in the NFL). So, it is understanding to learn from those mistakes and not get too high or too low.”

Willis mentioned that he had to learn a new offense with Tennessee after predominantly playing in an RPO system in college. 

“We always want to go right to where we want to be,” Willis said. “Understanding that (the Titans) had me coming in, thinking, a guy who has been playing RPOs, a whole bunch of drop-back shots (in college), that’s not necessarily what we do here. It’s not necessarily this offense. And it’s just understanding how we go from one thing and get to another. … You don’t go straight from running RPOs and mostly shotgun to being under center with Derrick Henry behind you and me having to feed him. So, you have to understand how the process goes and (take) the steps while learning. It’s like you’re learning, you’re learning, setback. You’re learning, you’re learning, setback. It’s the steps, taking the long way.”

Titans QB coach Pat O’Hara said that mistakes are natural for rookie quarterbacks and understands that the process of development takes time. 

“That’s the whole process of training and development that we’ve always known,” O’Hara said. “This is just a part of the process. Like I tell him, ‘This is part of the journey for him. It’s part of the journey. You can’t take the elevator, you have to take the stairs’, you know what I mean? “You’ve gotta work at it and he knows that. This is a process that is gonna take time.”