Texans cornerback Shaquill Griffin spent two seasons in Jacksonville. He didn’t like the way it ended and made Sunday’s game “personal.”
Griffin got close enough to the Jaguars sideline to talk trash to his former team as the Texans were whipping his former team.
“I said, ‘I bet y’all miss me,’” Griffin told Juston Griffin of the Florida Times-Union. “Some of it was talking trash. Some of it was all love. Just had my little fun with it.”
Griffin played only five games last season because of a back injury and finished the year on injured reserve. He underwent surgery, and the Jaguars released him in March in a salary cap move.
“I got released by that team during my surgery, so, it got very personal,” Griffin said. “You try to give so much to somebody. Even in that year when I was playing with them, playing through those injuries and stuff, I gave everything I had to it. To leave through that, to go through them dark times, to get back from the back surgery, to be able to play football again at full speed. I had to do that by myself. So yeah, very personal.”
Starting cornerback Derek Stingley injured his hamstring in practice last week, and the Texans placed him on injured reserve. Griffin, who played only six defensive snaps the first two games, became the primary defender on Calvin Ridley on Sunday.
Ridley managed three catches for 40 yards on seven targets, which played a big part in the Texans’ 37-17 victory.
“When I got here I started to create some opportunity [in Jacksonville]. Start my family here,” Griffin said. “So yeah, everything was personal. In my head, I’m walking around saying, ‘Shit, they took everything from me. I had my crib here, kids here. We had to move, so yeah, it got very personal. I needed that one.”
