Malik Jackson: Jaguars ‘smacked an ol’ bully in the mouth’

The doubters were many, and their voices provided ample fuel that helped drive the Jacksonville Jaguars to their divisional-round playoff victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday.

Yet, no one’s voices apparently did more to propel the Jaguars to their 45-42 triumph than those of the Steelers, some of whom made it clear they were looking past the Jaguars by talking about facing the New England Patriots.

‘They’ve got to whole (bunch of) things they got to think about’

As defensive tackle Malik Jackson pointed out, the Jaguars were more than happy to teach the Steelers a lesson in humility.

“We came in (to Pittsburgh) and smacked an ol’ bully in the mouth and now they’ve got to think about the running back (Le’Veon Bell) retiring, the quarterback (Blake Bortles) retiring,” Jackson told Zig Fracassi on Late Hits. “They’ve got a whole (bunch of) things they got to think about. So I’m glad we could give them extra time in the offseason to allow them to think about that.

‘It’s hopefully a mistake that they will learn never to make again’

“All their players were looking ahead of us. It’s hopefully a mistake that they will learn never to make again and, hopefully, we can just continue to keep our run going and continue to give Duval a good product to cheer for.”

Jackson said it was especially gratifying that Jaguars linebacker Myles Jack intercepted Roethlisberger to set up a Jacksonville touchdown. The Jags intercepted Roethlisberger five times on the way to their 30-9 victory against the Steelers in October.

‘For us, (it was important) to show that it wasn’t a fluke and that we are the truth’

“That’s what we do, we get turnovers and we score points,” Jackson said. “One thing that we have to make it a point to do that because Ben Roethlisberger said (the five-interception game) was a fluke. So for us, (it was important) to show that it wasn’t a fluke and that we are the truth, we have to go do it again. And we did it again. And again. And again. And again.”

Jackson said the Jaguars are ready for what outsiders see as another mammoth challenge: beating the Patriots in the conference title game.

‘It doesn’t matter who the next team is, it doesn’t matter who the quarterback is’

“Absolutely going to be the biggest game a lot of us have played in our football careers, just because it’s the next one,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who the team is, it doesn’t matter who the quarterback is. It matters that they’re the next team up for us. We’ve got to go out there and play our best football, and that’s what we’re going to go try to do. We’re going to enjoy this win, we’ve going to watch the film that they put on against Tennessee, and get ready for them with our due diligence.”