Many people may not have known this, but Jacksonville Jaguars defensive tackle DaVon Hamilton was once a long snapper. He was in high school at the time, but he was experienced nonetheless.

It makes sense then, that when first-team long snapper Ross Matiscik went down with an injury in the first half of the game against the Tennessee Titans, Hamilton stepped in and long snapped this past Sunday. 

Hamilton recalls his time playing the position when he chatted with the media this week.

 “In high school, actually, was the last time I snapped in a game,” Hamilton said. “It’s pretty cool seeing a different side of football. I never ran down on a punt before in the NFL, so that was interesting but yeah, I think I have a newfound respect for Ross for sure, and I hope he doesn't get hurt ever again,” he said.

Hamilton said he was just concentrating on the operation of getting the ball back to the punter properly. He then had to go downfield and try to make a tackle.

“The punt I feel like, especially when we're backed up a little bit, like can't snap over his head. There's a lot of things that could go wrong," Hamilton said. “It was probably during training camp was the last time I snapped. So, it's been a little minute.” he concluded. 

Hamilton then dove into the pride the defense takes in their performance.

“I feel like we take a lot of pride in that. I think we're just gaining confidence in ourselves, confidence in the call, and confidence where we need to be at in the game," Hamilton said. "I think it's just starting to build week after week, especially, we love for this to happen later on in the season. We're getting ready to try to do things, and towards the end of the season, it's working out for us right now."

He also said the group is very confident and they have the next man up mentality when players have to step in and take over for one another.

“I think we're just a very confident group. We’ve got a lot of good guys, a lot good players in our room, and somebody goes down, we’ve got to step up and make plays," Hamilton said. "That's what we did.”

Hamilton also talked about how important it was for this team to play for something in December.

 “This is something we've been working towards. We said we're going to do this at the beginning of the season, and that's what we're doing," Hamilton said. "Like I said before, I guess this is a confidence boost for our team to be able to play these types of games, and we know where we want to head, we know where our goals are, and we just are kind of trying to solidify those."