Titans WR Calvin Ridley wants to 'chirp' in his return to Jacksonville to face his former team

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Calvin Ridley was relatively quiet at EverBank Stadium in 2023.

He caught 31 passes for 329 yards and two touchdowns in eight games in Jacksonville last season. He was held to 40 yards or fewer in seven of those.

He’s looking for better results when he returns to face his former team Sunday. And Tennessee’s leading receiver has a little extra motivation stemming from the teams’ previous meeting, a 10-6 loss to the Jaguars three weeks ago.

“I got to get them; I want to get them,” Ridley said Thursday. “... I want to beat them. They talked (trash) to me last time. I really wasn’t listening, but they stopped me a couple times and I just heard chirping. I want to chirp.”

Ridley has 56 receptions for 857 yards and four touchdowns after signing a four-year, $92 million contract with the Titans in March. The deal included $50 million guaranteed.

He caught seven passes for 59 yards in the first meeting with Jacksonville (3-12). He also mistakenly ran out of bounds after gaining 2 yards on a third-and-5 play with a little more than a minute remaining. Ridley probably could have picked up the first down, but he stepped out at the 9-yard line and left the Titans facing an all-of-nothing try. Will Levis threw incomplete on fourth down.

Ridley can redeem himself Sunday — with a different quarterback. The Titans (3-12) have since switched from Levis to Mason Rudolph to close coach Brian Callahan’s first season in Nashville.

Ridley has 21 receptions for 336 yards and a score in Rudolph’s four starts.

“He’s a great player, a special player,” Jaguars cornerback Montaric Brown said of Ridley. “He can take it the long haul every play. You’ve just got to keep your eyes on him, and you’ve got to know where he’s at. Man, they’re looking for him to get the ball, and we’ve got to stop him.”

Ridley’s return is one of the few story lines in a game with no postseason implications aside from setting the 2025 NFL draft order.

“Calvin is a great guy on and off the field,” Jaguars defensive end Josh Hines-Allen said. “The way he plays is the way he practices. Off the field, he’s probably one of the best guys in the locker room; he’s not a cancer to the team. I’ve respected Calvin as a person and a player, to see the hard work that he’s put in from the trials that he’s went through.”

The Jaguars are playing Mac Jones because Trevor Lawrence is out for the season. The Titans are choosing to start Rudolph because of Will Levis’ penchant for turnovers. The second-year quarterback has 17 turnovers, including 12 interceptions.

“I’m ready to prove that I can take care of the ball better and keep scoring points,” Rudolph said.

The Titans are coming off their worst performance against the run since 1961. They gave up 335 yards and 6.7 yards a carry at Indianapolis last week. They held Jacksonville to 26 yards rushing three weeks ago. Defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson knows the Jaguars will test them early.

“We got to put the fire out,” Wilson said.

The Jaguars will have a new starting safety in Andrew Wingard, who is stepping in for Darnell Savage (concussion). Wingard finished with three pass breakups last week after replacing Savage early in the game.

“It’s weird. It’s hard with the season being over,” said Wingard, who missed the first nine games with a knee injury. “But you can’t ever slow down. It’s good to go put out tape and to show I’ve overcome the injury and it’s not hindering me.”

The Titans are two losses away from matching their most in a season since 2014. They already are in position for their highest draft pick since selecting No. 5 overall in 2017.

But two-time Pro Bowl defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons has no patience for anyone who thinks the team should tank its final two games to improve its draft spot.

“Get me out of here,” Simmons said in response to a question about potentially benching him down the stretch. “I mean, I don’t want to be a part of no tanking situation. I understand it, trying to get a draft pick. But at the end of the day, I’m not here to lose games.”

AP Pro Football Writer Teresa Walker contributed from Nashville.

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Las Vegas Raiders cornerback Jack Jones, left, takes down Jacksonville Jaguars tight end Luke Farrell during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)

Tennessee Titans quarterback Mason Rudolph (11) warms up before an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Jacksonville Jaguars defensive tackle Maason Smith (94) sacks Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Aidan O'Connell (12) during the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Jacksonville Jaguars safety Andrew Wingard (42) breaks up a pass intended for Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Jakobi Meyers (16) during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Tennessee Titans wide receiver Calvin Ridley, left, catches a pass for a touchdown over Indianapolis Colts cornerback Samuel Womack III (33) during the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

Tennessee Titans wide receiver Calvin Ridley (0) celebrates his touchdown with teammate Nick Westbrook-Ikhine (15) during the first half of an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

NEW YORK (AP) — Avicii, the groundbreaking Swedish DJ-producer, died six years ago at 28. Two new movies hitting Netflix next week aim to celebrate his life.

His death was a tragedy that reverberated around the world — much like his music, which brought unexpected genres and collaborators into his melodic EDM through forward-thinking, chart-topping hits like “Wake Me Up!” and “Hey Brother.”

A short concert film captured at what became his final performance, “Avicii — My Last Show,” and a full-length documentary, “Avicii — I’m Tim,” will premiere Tuesday on Netflix. They work to celebrate the artist born Tim Bergling, capturing his early life, the songs that made him an idiosyncratic talent, his insatiable curiosity and hunger for reinvention, and the people he left behind.

Miraculously, Avicii himself narrates a lot of the film — pulled from archival interviews and some never before published.

Capturing Avicii's life and career was no easy feat, director Henrik Burman told The Associated Press. The project took half a decade, beginning before the pandemic and not long after the DJ's death. Burman's interviews were long and many. “To know people around Tim,” he says, was the only way “to know Tim.”

Burman discussed Avicii's life, career and legacy with the AP. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

BURMAN: I would say from the beginning, the first thing I knew I wanted to do was find my story ... the story that I wanted to tell about Tim. But the most important (aspect) was time. I wanted this to be a project with no time limits ... I wanted it to be a slow process. And I wanted to have a lot of time for research. And the people close to Tim, I didn't want to force them into anything. I didn't want to push it. I wanted them to see and learn what I wanted to tell, you know, my story and my vision.

BURMAN: I had access to a lot of material ... I was looking for clues all the time ... I’ve watched so, so many hours of, you know, interviews with Tim just to see, “OK, he says this again. And it was like the eighth time that year. OK. That should be important.” ... It was kind of a puzzle and yeah, it was huge research work.

Sometimes, in the material that I had ... he was like, “If there’s a documentary, ever, about me, this should be in it.” ... There’s a story in the film, in the beginning, from where he is a kid. He tells a story to the interviewer. And he says, “When I was a kid, I wasn’t like a really nice person. For a few years, I was kind of bullying people. And I was around 6 or 7. And after a while I realized that people didn’t like me, so after a summer, I was thinking about this, and I decided, ‘I need to change ... and see what happens.’ And then people liked me again.” And when he told that story, he was like, “That’s a really important story. That’s a story that needs to be in a documentary, if it’s ever a documentary about me, because that says so much about me as a person.”

I was trying to find clues and stories and listen and ... early on, I was quite sure that I wanted to tell the story from Miami Ultra (Music Festival) and what happened there. That was kind of a key moment for me, and that was a huge key moment for Tim. But when I realized that this ... needs to be the center of my story, at the midpoint for my story, I realized that I had something to hold on to.

BURMAN: That is hard. I have from the beginning ... tried to explain my vision for this film ... But I reached out to a lot of friends, and of course his family, and I got their blessing.

When I got this kind of group of people that said yes to being in the film that I could start to ask more questions and have deeper conversations. But again, we needed time ... I wanted to work gently, that was very important.

BURMAN: I wanted to make an intimate and personal story and not speculate ... to find the right tone, you need time. And since we started work ... one, one-and-a-half years after Tim passed, I just knew that we needed time. And, of course, people around Tim needed a lot of time.

BURMAN: You can answer that question in so many ways. But if you’re talking about the music, and the music that he produced and wrote, he was so much ahead of his time, I would say. And you can hear the legacy of Avicii in the music today. You can hear it in the production in new music and hits from today. If you listen to the music — go back and listen to the music now that he released like 10 years ago, it sounds so fresh, modern, and I would say timeless.

BURMAN: Someone said to me that the film is so much about Tim, but at the same time, it’s so kind of universal. And I thought that was beautiful because life is not simple. There are no easy answers. And everything is complex and multilayered. So, that’s what I aim to contribute to Tim's story. And I also really hope that even the most hardcore fans get a new, fresh perspective of Tim as a person and Avicii as an artist.

FILE - Avicii poses for a portrait in New York, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes, File)

FILE - Avicii poses for a portrait in New York, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes, File)

This image released by Netflix shows a scene from "Avicii - I'm Tim," the story of Tim Bergling. (Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows a scene from "Avicii - I'm Tim," the story of Tim Bergling. (Netflix via AP)