Jamal Agnew's Cleats Heading To Pro Football Hall of Fame After Jaguars' 109-Yard Touchdown Return
Jamal Agnew is heading to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Well, at least his shoes are. The Jacksonville Jaguars return specialist found out on Monday that the cleats he wore on Sunday versus the Arizona Cardinals will be enshrined in Canton, at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The honor comes after Agnew tied a NFL record, returning a missed field goal 109-yards for a touchdown. He is the fifth person in league history to return one for the record setting distance.
Just before halftime, with 0:02 remaining on the clock, the Cardinals elected to attempt a 68-yard field goal for the lead. This would seem foolish for most teams, but Arizona has Matt Prater at kicker. Before yesterday, he owned the record for the longest field goal in NFL history, a 64-yarder he kicked in 2013. The record stood for eight years. Prater was set to break it with an even more improbable one.
Instead, he missed…and later in the day Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker broke Prater’s record with a 66-yarder against the Detroit Lions. The Lions, in weird roundabout ways, were tied to other parts of the day well. For it was with the Lions, in 2018, that Prater missed a field goal that was returned for 109 yards for a touchdown by Adam Humphries.
And it was Prater’s former Lions teammate, Agnew, who was waiting in the back of the end zone, just in case Prater was short again.
Prater hit enough long ones in warmup that led Jags special teams coordinator Nick Sorensen to tell Jags Head Coach Urban Meyer, “he can hit it.”
Instead, the kick was short. The moment it sailed downward, just in front of the crossbar, Marvin Jones—who was a teammate of Agnew’s previously with, you guessed it, the Detroit Lions—knew what was about to happen.
“Right when he touched it. That's my guy, and I know when he gets the ball and all those linemen were on the field, I was like, ‘It's over.’ You know that guy, when the ball is in his hands, and I've said this, I said this when I first got here, he deserves all the hype that he gets because he's one of the – he's the best in the league, I think.”
Meyer, who was still in shock the Cardinals were actually going to attempt such a long try, received an even bigger shock as Agnew sprinted down the Jags sideline in route to the end zone.
“I've never seen that in my life. We had it set up. We practiced that, we worked it, and that kid is a dynamic guy with the ball in his hand, Agnew. Same thing we saw. That's why we went after him in free agency. That's a game changer and he's an even better guy than he is a player.”
Like Jones, Agnew knew right away he had the perfect conditions to make history.
“As soon as the ball was short, I knew that they’re probably not going to catch me because I’m just going to use my speed. Everybody set that wall up for me on the left and we created that spark right before the halftime.”
Right there with him, for every step of the last 25 yards, after laying a crucial block and catching up with him, was corner Shaquill Griffin, on field to block.
“When they kicked it I am looking like ‘oh it is not going to make it’ then I actually saw Agnew back there. I did not see him back there at first – I did not. When I saw everyone still running and [saw] he caught it, I ran straight to my sideline [and] I saw two linemen coming at me and I was trying to figure out how I was going to block them and the first thing I did was just throw my hands up and I was just going to take it.
"They ended up trying to move around me which I am glad they did that because they could have just ran right through me but at that point I was going to do whatever it takes to make sure [Jamal] got in the endzone and then they did not hit me so I ran back around to catch up with him [and] to celebrate with him.”
The only person who admittedly thought it was going the other way was linebacker Josh Allen, also out to block.
“When I was out there, I was like, he’s about to make it (the field goal). I'm looking back where he kicked it from like he's about to make it, and then all of a sudden you see Jamal just take it out. I turned around, and it was get your block. Do your part. Do your job. Competitive excellence. If we don't all do our jobs, (if) Jamal doesn’t do his job, you know what I'm saying? That's just an example of us playing as a team, playing as one and playing for each other.”
According to Next Gen Stats, Agnew traveled 121.4 yards total on the return. It’s the second time in two weeks he’s taken a return for a 100-yard plus touchdown. Versus the Bronco’s, Agnew brought a kickoff out of the end zone and returned it 102 yards for a fourth quarter score.
Now in his sixth year in the league, Agnew has six touchdown returns in his career, three punt return touchdowns and two kick returns and the missed field goal return. It’s the latter, this 109-yard return, that tops the list as his favorite.
“That’s probably one of my favorite ones. I mean, I’ve never done it before, but I mean, it’s all offensive linemen and probably a couple tight ends and then the kicker. My thing was obviously I know [Matt] Prater from playing in Detroit. I know he’s capable of that, but he was going into the wind, it was a 68-yarder. I was like, ‘If he doesn’t get this, I’m probably going to score.’ And everybody—they made the wall for me on the left side of the field and it was just that spark we needed before halftime.”
While the cleats will head to the Hall of Fame and the play will head to the echelon of great Jaguar moments, Jamal Agnew is ready for the next big thing, the most historic and highest honor a player can receive and he wants it with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“I’ve been in the league for five years [and] I haven’t been in the playoffs. I want to win. I think I’m at that point where I’m making big plays, but I’m at that point where I want to win, I want a Super Bowl, I want to play in the playoffs, I want to play in meaningful games in December and January. And like I said, we’re trending upwards. We’re a really young team and week-by-week we’re getting a little bit better, a little bit better at a time.”
