McCardell thinks social justice efforts will help Jaguars locker room in unusual year

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – This week, the Jaguars rolled out a campaign called “Get in the Game” to motivate people to register to vote in the November election.

The 30-second public service announcement that you’ll see running on all of the local stations, including WJXT, includes some familiar names … including Gardner Minshew II, Doug Marrone and Chris Conley. Also involved with the message, Jaguars receivers coach Keenan McCardell, who said it was important to him and the team to do something more than just protest for social justice. They wanted to put action behind their words.

“As big for us, I mean, what it shows together togetherness, and that we want to try to help be a part of fixing the problem. You know, we can’t wait,” McCardell said. “We stepped up and want to get everybody registered here in Duval. I think, like 12% of the county still hadn’t been registered to vote. So I think we needed to step up, take the initiative to get it out there and get people to get registered by October 5 so they can vote in November.”

As for the Jaguars locker room itself, McCardell said the team has made efforts to ensure that everyone on the roster is registered to vote this fall.

“Everybody has jumped in on helping the guys get registered here in Duval and telling those guys if they want to keep their out of state license, they can register to vote in their in their home state,” McCardell said. “We’ve come together as a team and let’s get to the polls and so we can get on those ballots.”

Conley has been the Jaguars spokesman when it comes to social justice and McCardell says his leadership carries over to the field as well.

“He articulates it very well,” McCardell said. “He puts the work in, he goes behind the scenes and does all the studying the background work for the things that he’s talking about. He comes prepared. Like a true pro. Even on the field, you come prepared. He’s coming prepared for the issues at hand that we’re trying to face now.”

Asked if he thought that if another situation like the one that occurred in Kenosha, Wisc. happened during the football season that NFL teams would not play, McCardell said he honestly didn’t know but did allow for the potential for that to happen.