The Jacksonville Jaguars are turning to a good luck charm before Sunday’s playoff game against Buffalo. Jacksonville singer Susan Tedeschi will perform the National Anthem, and the team has never lost a game with her in the fold.
The game is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday at EverBank Stadium. CBS will broadcast the game nationwide.
Who is Susan Tedeschi?
Tedeschi is the lead singer and guitarist for the Jacksonville-based Tedeschi Trucks Band. She’s a New Englander by birth but now lives in Jacksonville with her husband and bandmate, Derek Trucks. Tedeschi was nominated for five Grammy Awards as a solo artist before she and Derek formed the Tedeschi Trucks Band in 2010. They married in 2001 and have two children.
Is Susan Tedeschi a Jaguars fan?
She and Trucks have been Jaguars season ticket-holders for at least 20 years, and Trucks’ father has had tickets since the team’s first year. The Tedeschi Trucks Band was chosen to be the headliner on opening night for the Daily’s Place amphitheater in 2017.
Has Susan Tedeschi ever sung the National Anthem before a Jaguars game?
Both Tedeschi and Trucks have done the anthem for Jags games before. Tedeschi sang the anthem at a 2012 regular-season game and at the Jaguars’ last two home playoff games, in 2018, when they beat the Buffalo Bills, and in 2023, when they beat the Chargers (Trucks accompanied her at the Chargers game). She has also performed the anthem for Seattle Mariners and the Philadelphia Phillies games and before Major League Baseball League Championship Series games in Boston and San Francisco. Trucks played the anthem on guitar before a nationally televised 2020 Jaguars game, but it was pre-recorded and played on the big video screens due to the pandemic.
Is Susan Tedeschi available if the Jaguars play another home playoff game?
The Tedeschi Trucks Band is reportedly working on a new album at Swamp Raga Studios in Jacksonville, and has no concerts booked until March, so theoretically she could be available for a Divisional Round or AFC Championship Game in Jacksonville. She was in Panama this week when she learned she was singing on Sunday, and they’ll fly back in time for the game. “The lodge we are staying at has an actual jaguar living within a few miles of it,” Trucks wrote Thursday in an e-mail from Panama. “We watched videos from the trail cam last night. Wild!”
Will the anthem be shown on television?
That’s hard to say. NFL games sometimes show the anthem, but not always. There are no other NFL games happening at the same time, so CBS may be more inclined to show the anthem, but nothing is guaranteed.
Who else has sung the anthem at Jaguars home games this year?
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jaguars call on ‘good luck charm’ to sing anthem before playoff game
Reporting by Tom Szaroleta, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
