Colts
Colts QB Matt Ryan isn’t sure what his future will be next season but mentioned that he certainly feels that he needs the break this offseason will provide.
“I still love playing,” Ryan said, via Stephen Holder of ESPN. “I’m obviously not committed to anything. Got to see how it shakes out. But I still love playing and still feel like, honestly, there’s a lot of good football [left]. So, we’ll see.”
“I’m under contract, and until that changes, you kind of go to work,” Ryan added. “There’s a lot that’s going to happen here in the next six, eight weeks, whatever it is. Let’s see. I think all of us need a little bit of a break.”
Colts GM Chris Ballard also weighed in on Ryan and the way the season went for Indianapolis.
“[This season] is not an indictment on Matt Ryan,” Ballard said. “Matt Ryan is as professional a player that I’ve ever been around. I still think he’s got something left in his body to play. He’s smart and knows how to play the game. Looking back, early in the season we had some changes to the offensive line, and that’s where our struggles occurred early and we just never really recovered from them. It took us a while to get some continuity. I probably underestimated that.”
Jaguars
A year ago, the Jaguars were a disaster coming of the tumultuous tenure of former HC Urban Meyer, a rocky coaching search, and set to pick No. 1 overall for the second straight year. Things feel much different now, QB Trevor Lawrence acknowledged from his first career Pro Bowl after Jacksonville rallied from a 4-8 record to make a playoff run to the divisional round.
“A lot’s changed. It’s a little bit easier to see just the direction that we’re headed,” Lawrence said via NFL Media’s Grant Gordon. “Obviously, every year’s different, every year’s new and you gotta go and start from scratch. But just the culture that we built in Jacksonville, compared to this time last year, I have a lot more confidence in where we’re going moving forward. We have our coach, we’ve got a lot of our guys coming back on offense, defense…”
“Really just excited for the future,” Lawrence added. “This time last year didn’t really know what was going to happen. Didn’t know who the coach was going to be. Obviously, didn’t have a great year. So now, we just have that confidence moving forward. Got our first playoff win in a long time. Just to build off that next year is what we’re excited about.”
The arrival of HC Doug Pederson was key. Lawrence said the two have similar personalities and have got along tremendously, with Pederson helping Lawrence start to reach the sky-high potential that was dimmed for a season.
“Didn’t play my best ball consistently every week until probably halfway through the season,” Lawrence said. “So, I think you see that starting to turn and the chemistry just with our guys on offense, got better every week, every game. And the same with me and the coach. I think just the way we saw things, we’re getting more and more in sync, and you see how that all kind of came together.”
- Oklahoma S Justin Broiles met with the Jaguars at the Tropical Bowl. (Justin Melo)
Texans
- Oklahoma S Justin Broiles met with the Texans at the Tropical Bowl. (Justin Melo)
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