Jaguars can lean on teammates such as Tyler Shatley, Darious Williams for advice on playoffs

Tyler Shatley is the only Jaguars player who was on the team for its last playoff run, in 2017.

But the Jaguars' starting left guard and nine-year veteran has company from a relatively small group of teammates with NFL postseason experience. A dozen other players on the current active roster have competed in playoff games, for a combined 34 games.

The other 40 players will get their first taste on Saturday at TIAA Bank Field (8:15 p.m., NBC) when the Jaguars (9-8) face the Los Angeles Chargers (10-7). 

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Shatley played in all three Jaguars postseason games in 2017 but was in the game for only four plays in the 10-3 home victory over Buffalo: two on offense and two on special teams. He had 10 snaps the following week in the victory at Pittsburgh and four in the AFC championship game at New England.

"I really don't remember exactly how I felt," he said. "It was a different situation and I really played only on special teams. But it feels good to have this streak going [the Jags won five in a row to close the regular season]. I think we're peaking at the right time."

Williams, Peters have most experience

Cornerback Darious Williams and nose tackle Corey Peters have competed in the most playoff games among Jaguar players at five each. Williams was inactive for three playoff games with the Los Angeles Rams in 2018 but in 2020 and then during the Rams' Super Bowl season last year, he played in all five games and started five.

Williams has 26 tackles (17 solo), one interception and three passes defensed in the playoffs. He had eight tackles and batted down one pass in the Rams' 23-20 victory over Cincinnati.

Peters started four playoff games for Atlanta and one for Arizona with a total of 13 tackles, three for losses, one sack and a pass deflection.

Wide receiver Marvin Jones Jr., has the most offensive production in the playoffs among current Jags players. In three games with the Bengals and one with Detroit, he caught 19 passes for 277 yards. He caught eight passes for 130 yards against the Chargers in 2013.

One Jaguars player has competed against his current team in past playoff games. Zay Jones caught two passes for 20 yards for Buffalo in their 10-3 loss to the Jags in 2017.

In addition to Williams and Peters, Jamycal Hasty (San Francisco), Arden Key (San Francisco), Zay Jones (Las Vegas) and Christian Kirk (Arizona) were in last year's playoffs.

Williams has the most playoff experience in terms of total snaps, with 284. However, the NFL wasn't tracking snap counts in 2010 and 2011 with Peters started two playoff games for the Falcons. He had 119 snaps in three playoff games after that, two with Atlanta and one with Arizona.

Marvin Jones had 230 snaps in his playoff games. Rayshawn Jenkins played 100 snaps (83 on defense, 18 on special teams) in one game for the Chargers, a 41-28 loss to New England in the 2018 playoffs.

Coaches have Super Bowl rings

Of course, if Jaguars players experiencing the post-season for the first time need advice, they've got their own coaching staff.

Head coach Doug Pederson led the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory in 2017 (had the Jags won their AFC title game against New England, they would have played the Eagles) and offensive coordinator Press Taylor was on that staff.

Defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell has been to the playoffs six times with three teams and was the Tampa Bay Bucs linebackers coach when they won the 2020 Super Bowl. He was on four playoff teams as a player, the last in 2003 with Carolina when the Panthers won the NFC title, then lost to New England 32-29 in the Super Bowl.

While numerous Jaguars have said during the season their respect for Pederson is grounded in his experience of winning a Super Bowl, he said advice on dealing with the playoffs might resonate more coming from a fellow player.

"It is nice to have guys that have had some postseason experience," he said. "Guys that you can lean on and just kind of voice their feelings on how to handle situations. I did it back in 2017 and 2018 and had some of those guys talk to the team. Sometimes now, you get to this late in the year, they’re tired of listening to me. Listen to their teammates a little bit. Just too, how those guys prepare during the week and how they handle their week because for us, postseason started last week. Everything from last week on is a win-and-continue scenario."

Caldwell said his best advice to the players is to not change much about their preparation.

"On the night before the game I stand up and say, ‘Yeah, it’s a big game because it’s the next one,’" Caldwell said. "You take that attitude … and they go out there and they play. It’s the same game that they’ve been playing their whole lives. Stakes are a little bit higher, but prepare, understand what you’re doing, understand your opponent, go out there and do what you do.”

Shatley says offense more versatile

Shatley is the only one who bridges the gap between the 2017 Jaguars and this year's team. He backed up center Brandon Linder and right guard A.J. Cann and started four games at midseason when Linder was injured. Shatley had 303 offensive snaps that season but Linder was healthy for the playoffs and Shatley had only four offensive snaps total for the three games.

He said there some differences between the team teams, especially on offense.

"Different coaches, different style of play," he said. "We were more downhill, power kind of stuff. [Quarterback] Blake [Bortles] had a good year but I think we have more versatility on offense with this team. [Quarterback] Trevor [Lawrence] has more weapons and we're different in how we get the ball out to people."

The 2017 Jaguars defense was opportunistic and aggressive from week one when they sacked Tom Savage and Deshaun Watson 10 times and had four turnovers in beating Houston 29-7. The 2022 Jaguars defense had some rough spots early in the season but Linder said they're playing with the same kind of nasty attitude that he saw in 2017.

"Our defense is playing really well right now, and they helped us out last week," he said of the 20-16 victory over Tennessee to clinch the AFC South title. "It's nice to play that kind of complementary football. There have been weeks when the offense needed help and weeks when the defense needed help and all that matters is the scoreboard."

Jaguars playoff experience

The Jaguars have 13 players on the current active roster who have competed in the NFL postseason in the past:

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jaguars guard Tyler Shatley is the only player left from 2017 playoff team