Ngakoue Agrees With Gerald McCoy
January 26th, 2018
There are draft steals, and then there’s a much higher level of theft. Pro Bowl Jaguars defensive end Yannick Ngakoue is one of those.
The 22-year-old has 20 sacks and 10 forced fumbles in two seasons after the Jags snatched him just 10 picks after Roberto Aguayo in the 2016 NFL Draft.
This week, Joe had a long chat with Ngakoue, who would be a household name if people knew how to pronounce it.
He said he heard the Bucs were interested in him during the draft process but he didn’t meet with them at the NFL Scouting Combine or at any point, and he wasn’t invited to Tampa for an official visit. In fact, only three teams invited him to their facility: Tennessee, New York and Jacksonville.
That loss aside, Ngakoue told Joe that Gerald McCoy is on the money about his assessment of the Jaguars’ fast and radical change.
Joe asked McCoy this week what he learned most from watching this seasons playoffs. In addition to saying, “never bet against Tom Brady,” McCoy was adamant that the playoff Jaguars were nothing resembling the team the Bucs had two practices against in August, along with a preseason game.
“He’s right,” Ngakoue said of McCoy. “We were still trying to figure out our new identity and our culture when the Bucs were with us. That was a fast process overall when you look back on it, but it didn’t feel that way when you’re in it. People can see the change. We got a new standard in that building, and it starts with that new standard, and we got the guys to move it forward.”
Ngakoue added that the new culture and identity in Jacksonville was fully cemented in Week 1 when the team had a complete 29-7 win at Houston. He said despite a blowout loss in Week 2, nothing had altered the new direction and focus.
McCoy said the lesson from the Jaguars and the playoffs was clear.
“What I learned is to trust the process. Keep working. Do things the right way and things will work out,” McCoy said. “Man, if everybody comes to do their job and have the right mentality, anything can happen, man. Jacksonville was a few minutes from being in the Super Bowl.”
January 26th, 2018 at 10:46 am
Same talk from McCoy every offseason. How about you stop dressing up in kimonos and joking around all training camp and lead by example and demand your defense to play like champions.
January 26th, 2018 at 10:48 am
can’t wait to hear from JBF commenters what exactly is wrong\bad about what GMC said, since something always is apparently
January 26th, 2018 at 10:55 am
Yeah…that pick is one of the all time dumb Buc picks….please stop bringing it up
January 26th, 2018 at 11:00 am
hmmm… sounds familiar… in the league it is not about player talent. it is about the institution. they system. The Patriots are the bar. other teams have started to figure that out… hope we can catch up.
GO BUCS!!!!!
January 26th, 2018 at 11:07 am
the culture will not change until the leader of the losing culture the cryin clown cancer93 is gone. sad part is this pathetic franchise ran by glazers rather keep their cryin soft fragile clown of dt happy than demand excellence…. no one captain’s a flat performance like cancer93
pro bowl is a joke and I am glad the leagues most overrated clown is eating up all the camera time he can. god forbid he get’s healthy for his real team that does not matter gmc is a POS, bad character, selfish, me first locker room cancer with a smile cancer93 that has never won a single meaningful game in his 8 year failed career. bucsfans are too ignorant to realize the difference between fraudulent popularity and greatness. Selmon, Sapp, Lynch and Barber were great GMC is a fraud and a career loser. face of the basement years is his legacy in tampa nothing more.
January 26th, 2018 at 11:08 am
Haha thanks Batman, great take..
I’ll add to the dialogue: Licht better blow us away this year, because sometimes I question how that guy has a job as GM
January 26th, 2018 at 11:10 am
99.97.92.55.47.40.28.20.7 Says:
January 26th, 2018 at 11:00 am
hmmm… sounds familiar… in the league it is not about player talent. it is about the institution. they system. The Patriots are the bar.
yeah the Pats have a cold blooded assassin @ QB….can make every throw in the book….goes a long way….Jameis has trouble hitting long balls…hitting players in stride….throwing timing balls to the spot….
January 26th, 2018 at 11:11 am
That was a fast process overall when you look back on it, but it didn’t feel that way when you’re in it.
translation: when you have someone at the top who knows what their doing, changing a losing culture can be fixed in one offseason!!!!!
they figured out their identity by week1….I believe it was week 5 or 6 when Winston said, we need to find our identity….and after going 5-11 I doubt they found it yet….we’re going into 2018 still searching for our identity….GO BUCS!!!!
January 26th, 2018 at 11:12 am
Lol easy to trust the process in a first year regime but in the second year of the same process it’s a different story. Wasn’t McCoy on record complaining about things he was being asked to do?
Jags set the culture in one off-season why has it taken a decade here? I think these players look at everything being done over their heads and say to themselves WTF is my team doing, players watch the draft think McCoy was cheering for aguayo or vh3? He’s talking about help his gm hasn’t given him since he got drafted
January 26th, 2018 at 11:14 am
Hmmm..Ngakoue hit the nail on its head there. He said, NEW STANDARD in Jacksonville. You can bet new VP Coughlin had a lot to do with that. Where is the Bucs ..New standard? Oops my bad.. Why its Pressbox Mike Smith sittin high in da air with his binoculars eatin nachos exclaiming, we got to get better!! I feel for my fellow Buc fans because its gonna probably take about 2 more yrs of the Koetter/Smitty Bong show before the Glazers finally..see the light…if then!
January 26th, 2018 at 11:14 am
Everyone always vomits when they read stuff like this about players THE BUCS COULD HAVE HAD……
The root of the evil is especially pro personnel and whichever college scout thought Aguayo was worth that pick….
SHEEEEEESH!
The incompetence is frightening.
January 26th, 2018 at 11:19 am
I hear ya. it’s bigger than Brady though.
Matt Cassel: 11-5 with brady out for year. Goes on to have a horrendous losing career elsewhere
Hoyer, Mallet, Brisset, Garrapalo all contribute for a winning record.
Brady is the GOAT, but in large part because he is leveraged by the institution. you drop in a manning or a rogers or a brees or a roethlesberger or a goff or a matt ryan, alex smith, carr, rivers, those guys are going to still be playing for the conference title every year. I’d like to think Winston as well, but the jury is still out given his knack for tossing the most untimely of picks.
January 26th, 2018 at 11:23 am
Tom, the root of the evil is the GM that said ‘let’s trade up and take a kicker in the second round.’.. he’s not gettin a pass on that one. That’ll be on Licht’s tombstone just like letting Bennett walk will be on Dominic’s
January 26th, 2018 at 11:28 am
had no idea Roberto was taken before this guy…..GO BUCS!!!!
January 26th, 2018 at 11:31 am
YEp..Mr Brady is the GOAT. And rumor has it..He was not even close to being a 1st round draft pick!! But New England is full of players..Linemen, backs, ect who were 3 thru 6 rd picks. Maybe our Bucs need to take a page from Bellacheck and start spying?
January 26th, 2018 at 11:40 am
That right there may be the nail in the coffin if Licht doesn’t make it to next season, NO WAY Lovie would’ve let the kicker get picked knowing this guy was on the board. I will happily admit, when I saw the Jags get him after already having Dante Fowler and I think they signed Malik Jackson in free agency the same year asked why would the Bucs do that
January 26th, 2018 at 11:58 am
813bucboi
Roberto Aguayo was taken before 77% of the 253 players hat was drafted. He was the 59th pick in a draft of 253 players. There was a total of 194 good football players left when Jason Licht made this dumb pick.
January 26th, 2018 at 11:59 am
**that**
January 26th, 2018 at 12:04 pm
Its hard to stomach the thought of this kid being available and us taking a kicker but that’s the sport and how it goes. There will be several DE that will be available in the 2nd or 3rd this draft and they will be an instant upgrade over our current players.
January 26th, 2018 at 12:10 pm
calm down. if he were a buc he would have 3-4 sacks tops and we would be talking about why we should have gotten aguayo because he’s in the pro bowl. lol
January 26th, 2018 at 12:18 pm
So who is going to bring about the “new culture” in Tampa Bay? Highly doubtful… more like “same old same old”.
January 26th, 2018 at 12:33 pm
Great job jason lict
January 26th, 2018 at 12:34 pm
@Robert
I agree….this staff cant develop DE’s or CB’s to save their life…..GO BUCS!!!!
January 26th, 2018 at 12:43 pm
813 ….once this coaching staff has the talent upgrades both sides of the ball OL,RB—DL,DB….the coaches will be fine…assuming #3 doesn’t step in it
January 26th, 2018 at 12:46 pm
Licht has built an expansion defense
January 26th, 2018 at 12:48 pm
Toes on the line!
Check that room temperature.
Losers in losers out…..
January 26th, 2018 at 12:56 pm
I don’t think the Glazers should give Licht the freedom to build the DL without supervision. He’s missed on too many impact players in the draft and FA to be trusted to retool this DL.
January 26th, 2018 at 1:02 pm
Arch…the GM and coaching staff are all on thin ice…they understand this too…many of the established players understand that if new everything comes in after the 2018 season..they may be gone too…..should be great focus and motivation next year
January 26th, 2018 at 1:13 pm
Gerald is right! He gets criticized far too often but we fail to take into consideration the supporting cast around him.
Let’s rewind the tape to last off-season, we knew we needed DL help and secondary help. C. Campbell was on the market but the cries were that he wanted too much money. Instead, the GM went after a player who had question marks to begin with…that same player may not be on this roster for the 2018-2019 Bucs.
The GM had a chance to sign a talented DB who ended up on the same Jacksonville team. In this league, you have to pay for talent. Nothing against B. Mac, he definitely came in and was balling but I don’t trust V. Hargreaves and the presence of another starting caliber DB would have helped the secondary.
Our team needed an infusion of talent on the defensive side and we missed the chance to build off a successful season 2016-2017 where the defense was creating a foundation for success.
January 26th, 2018 at 1:45 pm
Architek…good point. On what basis can we believe Licht and crew know future quality D linemen when they see them? We have no evidence of it, to this point.
January 26th, 2018 at 1:48 pm
@Joe … “Jags snatched him just 10 picks after Roberto Aguayo in the 2016 NFL Draft.” Just for a change Joe, why don’t you beat on Licht the same way you beat on Martin. He was a lot more responsible for last season’s debacle than Martin was. Or why not denigrate Licht the same way you’ve harped on Smitty for, in your eyes, screwing up the Bucs’ defense. Give the man some halfway decent talent to work with before throwing him under the bus.
@813bucboi … “this staff cant develop DE’s or CB’s to save their life.” And you know that HOW bucboi? Smitty & Hayes were given close to nothing to work with in terms of DEs, and you expect them to turn out a DLine that’s comparable to Jacksonville’s? Compare the DLines of the Jags or Eagles or any of the good defenses with what the Bucs put on the field last year in terms of T-A-L-E-N-T and you should come away shaking your head. We’re badly outgunned defensively. That’s on Licht more-so than it’s on the coaches.
January 26th, 2018 at 1:49 pm
C. Campbell had a chance to go here or the Jaguars last off-season. With the Jags other talent on the d line, why in the hell would he want to come here? We tried to get him but he wanted to play for a winning defense.
Amazing how one poster has a vendetta against GMC. Since you are so informed on what a good defensive tackle is nowadays in the NFL, why don’t you get 10 opinions from NFL Pro personnel about what kind of player GMC is before you run your mouth. Or better yet ask 10 offensive lineman around the league since you know so much what a good d tackle is and see what they think of GMC. Amazing how much better he would be if he had other people on the line who could do what is required so he wouldn’t be double teamed so much. Or I forgot we had Baker and 2 defensive ends that never came close to putting pressure on the QB or stopping the run except for McDonald.
January 26th, 2018 at 3:07 pm
Now let’s blame the coach.
Barry Switzer won a Super Bowl
We have 6-10 talent at best
January 26th, 2018 at 3:36 pm
If we have no talent it’s because Meathead valued a kicker more then drafting D lineman. McCoy is learning from a 22 yr old about buying in. McCoy has been in the league 8 years yet he still hasn’t figured out carrying rookie’s shoulder pads isn’t leading, it’s being a servant. Licht said McCoy won’t be going anywhere he wants to build around him. Great build around a career loser at the end of his time. Licht, like McCoy doesn’t get it.
January 26th, 2018 at 3:48 pm
Jason Licht is the least successful GM in the modern history of the Buccaneers. Even worse than the “Rockstar” that Joe loves so much.
The only joke funnier than GM Joe’s trade ideas is his reverence for incompetent GM’s who have no clue on how to build a winning roster.
January 26th, 2018 at 4:22 pm
DR
don’t shot the messenger….
@joe has written numerous of time how this defensive staff cant develop DE’s or CB’s…..
smitty and hayes have a 1st(VHG) and 2nd(SPENCE) round pick to work with…..
but I guess 1st and 2nd round picks aren’t talented…..GTFOH….GO BUCS!!!!
January 26th, 2018 at 4:25 pm
alter
how long is it going to take to get the “talent” your referring to?…..
because the regime only has 2018….GO BUCS!!!!
January 26th, 2018 at 4:45 pm
813….second half of the 2019 season….2 (successful) drafts and FA’s
January 26th, 2018 at 7:11 pm
@813bucboi: Exactly. One year to prove it or everybody is gone. Wonder how season ticket sales are going to go this year?
January 26th, 2018 at 10:04 pm
At this level- its as much mental as it is physical.
The Patriots are a very intelligent team.
The Bucs arent.
Having some DEs wouldnt hurt, either
January 27th, 2018 at 7:43 am
Trade 93!!