AFC Notes: Brian Thomas Jr., Cam Ward, Jaguars, Texans, Titans

Jaguars WR Brian Thomas, Jr. said he’s continuing to work to get his career back on track after another disappointing game.

“Everybody goes through adversity,” he said, via ESPN. “You’ve just got to keep fighting through it. That’s the only way I know how to get through, just keep fighting through it. And that’s what I’m going to continue to do, keep fighting and keep coming in with a good mindset, keep working hard each and every day at practice. Going out there, doing the little things, trying to be the best that I can be, blocking, doing all the little things, just keep fighting through it.”

Thomas is doing his best to block the outside noise, once again.

“I try not to be too up, too down, too low,” Thomas said. “So I try to stay [in the middle]. So just trying to tune all that out and just stay focused, stay locked in on the main thing.”

The Texans are currently 2-5 after entering the season as the odds-on favorites to win the AFC South. Houston GM Nick Caserio said they are taking advantage of their Week 8 bye, and are getting back to “basic fundamentals and techniques.”

“2-5, we are where we are. Definitely can play better. We certainly could do a number of things better collectively, myself included. We’ll try to take advantage here of the bye week, look at some of the things we’re doing well, look at some of the areas we can improve. Honestly, not to boil this down to simplicity, it comes back to basic fundamentals and techniques. Tackling is tackling. You’re either a good tackler or you’re not. We can do some things relative to hidden yardage in some of the areas. But one of the worst penalized teams in the league, one of the worst tackling teams in the league. If we can make some incremental progress in some of those areas, then can potentially lead to a better result. The reality is, look, we’re 2-5. Lost four games on the last possession. What are some of the things we can do on the margin to potentially improve to see if we can finish those games. We’re 1-4 in one-score games, whatever it was. We were able to pull out the Jacksonville game because we executed critical situations. It’s where we are. There’s no reason to mope around and wallow in our sorrows. This is the NFL. A lot of good teams, a lot of good players. We can certainly make some improvements. If we make some improvements, we’ll see if the results are better. I think that’s what the focus is going to be here this week,” Caserio said, via TexansWire.

When asked if he thinks the roster is built for success, Caserio responded that he is trying to observe what they could’ve done differently over the offseason and determine where they could improve.

“You go into the off-season, you put together the team that you feel makes the most sense. Once the season starts, then try to figure out maybe some need to play more, some need to play less, what are some of the different things we can do. The team is what the team is. We’re not going to see significant change relative to personnel till the off-season. We’ll go back and look at part of our responsibility, look at some of the things we did, some of the decisions we made, what could we have done a little bit differently. It’s kind of revisionist history. We put the team together because we feel like that’s the right decision at the time. When you make those decisions, you’re not really focused on what do you think the result is going to be record-wise. It’s let’s put together the best team. Ultimately, you have to go out there and try to play good football. At times we in the end collectively as a team haven’t played as consistently as we would have liked to from start to finish. We’ve kind of done it in pockets. It’s been a little disjointed at different points. We just have to see if we can play. [Head Coach] DeMeco [Ryans] has talked about this a little bit, just play better complementary football as an overall team. If we do that, then maybe the result will be a little bit different. Again, we’ve put ourselves in position to win every game, other than the Cincinnati game, which was tough sledding there. Every other game we’ve had an opportunity to win and we have been able to capitalize. Credit to the other team, they made more plays. That’s the reality of the NFL. That’s the way this goes sometimes.”

As for whether they could make personnel changes, Caserio said they will do what is “appropriate.”

“We’ll see. We’ll look at it. If we feel it’s appropriate, great. Then what’s the alternative. We’ll look at everything. We’re not going to make any knee-jerk decisions on the heels of what happened yesterday. We’ll go through the week. We’ll take inventory. DeMeco will take time with the coaching staff, talk through different things, whether it’s schematically, personnel-wise. We’ll try to figure out what’s the best formula moving forward. Honestly, it’s going to probably change week to week as injuries are going to be a part of it, who is available, who is not available, who is coming back, some of those types of things. We’ll take the information in present time and try to make a decision that we feel makes the most sense for that particular week.”

Titans QB Cam Ward said the team has done a better job of improving their efficiency but still wants to see them finish games better.

“I think we have gotten better at starting faster – that is still something that we have to improve on,” Ward said, via the team’s website. “I think another area we’ve gotten better is our efficiency rate. But at the end of the day that all comes with throwing and catching the ball, having successful runs to start the game off. It is everybody. The biggest thing we are trying to get better at is just finishing out games. The fourth quarter is where we have to be our best, and we just have to continue to strive for that.”

Ward added that the team has to keep momentum going while they have it.

“We have to continue to get into a rhythm, continue to stay in a rhythm and not have little lull here and there,” Ward said. “We have to continue to work on that.”