Voice of Reason

Tampa bay 27, New England 10, enough said about pre-season football…

the worst thing about that game is it gave the Dolphins fans artificial hope for their season. Seriously, I haven’t stopped hearing it from my dad all day. He’s a long time fins fan, and we have a $5 bet that the fins won’t get 6 wins all season. So I bet him another $5 that the Jags would more than double the Fins regular season win total.

He mistakenly took that bet. Come December, I’ll have $10 from the old man! hehe

It is pre-season, and some kinks need to be worked out. Still, so far we appear to have all the same problems as last year… and I’m not sure what to make of it. Do I just assume all these problems will go away within the next 3 weeks, despite no evidence of progress?

I guess my real problem is that I’m too much of a fan :) I want “my” Jags to dominate every team they play, whenever they play! I want Groves to play like a superstar… right now (even though I know it was never realistic to expect him to learn all the tricks of the trade before the END of this season, or even next). I want Walker to dazzle opponent defences, I want our secondary to destroy opponent offences. I want us to lead the NFL in sacks etc. etc.

In short, I need to be more realistic :) I need to remember that despite how badly they did play, 1 fumbled football, 1 dropped catch and 1 overthrown ball changed things massively.

Don’t put much stock in it. You’re right to be the voice of reason here. And yes, I’m being serious.

Sure, you Jags fans should be concerned with the WR depth and health, not having Derrick Harvey, and the secondary, but it is better to have those concerns in PRE-season than in REAL-season.

Vic Ketcham mentioned something in his article monday that makes me have to ask you guys who are on top of the roster selections: With Boughman’s performance against Miami, will JDR be less inclined to cut him or will he be sent to the practice squad? How will this affect the overall makeup of the roster? You have to know things are tight with the injuries that are being carried on the active roster going into the opening of the season.

Preseason 4 may see a lot of Lemon versus Boughman play?

As fans we can’t do anything anyway so there is no panick.
As coaches, panick leads to silly moves such as big contracts to unproven rookies or past their prime free agents. It leads to instability in the team as someone gets let go before I do mentality sets in. It is destructive and I trust Jack and Shack to stay the course and make the proper adjustments.

But there is reason for concern. A less than stellar season could begin a downhill slide for the team here in Jacksonville. Expectations verses a bad reality would not sit well after the big contracts that were awarded. As a Browns fan from way back, I watched the demise of the team before leaving for Baltimore. It happens to the best franchises. Big contracts, poor season, low attendance, BANG – major financial problems and desperation sets in.

The jaguars schedule is not easy and the first four games are horrible in terms of other teams desire to win. Jacksonville won last year on raw determination and play makers, key third downs, key interceptions, big plays. Take a couple of plays here and there away and BANG – 8 and 8. That is the NFL. The 8 and 8 season before had weird things happen, a last minute interception in Washington, an interception fumble in Buffalo. Four picks in Tennessee, a stupid Houston game and it all fell apart.

So we are 2-2, don’t panick. Still 12 games to go. So we are 5-4, don’t panick, the easy part of the schedule is coming. So we are 6 and 7, we can still make the playoffs. Hope springs eternal, and that is all we have right now, hope. Nothing has been shown on the field and that is cause for concern.

The other good thing to come from this week… Women’s Olympic Volleyball on HDtv.

I consider myself an extremely knowledgable fan. I know that it’s pre-season BUT there IS reason for concern. 1st – D line is weaker, not stronger than last year – Bobby McCray better than Harvey / Groves combined. Groves is a speacialist at best – he will get dominated physically as was very evident last Saturday. D Line has absolutely no push and is now being dominated in run game to boot.

WR is huge concern – unproven to say the least (Poter & especially Williamson) and riddled with injury. 2 Hit Walker (ball hits Walker, then hits the ground) is not the answer. O-Line is weaker with Measter injury.

I look at preseaon effort and execution not final score – so far Jags get an F.