Well we all just saw a promising season at 7-5 flushed away by a late season collapse that culminated in 4 consecutive losses to give the Jaguars a 7-9 final record. Here's the fact though, it's not the end of the world. In the immortal words of Dennis Green, "They are who we thought they were!"
To start the season the majority of Jaguar fans on BCC said that their expectations for this team was for a team around .500 possibly competing for a wild card team. That's what they were. A soft schedule in the middle of the season gave us the false impression that they were something more than that. It was exactly that though, a false impression. The 2009 Jaguars performed exactly how we thought the 2009 Jaguars would. It would've been fun to see them in the playoffs, but realistically this wasn't a playoff caliber team.
So here comes the offseason on Big Cat Country and it is one that will be more exciting than last year. Last year the Jaguars were dealing with the task of rebuilding a team that didn't even come close to living up to its Super Bowl aspirations. There was an utter lack of youth, severe character issues and several positions that needed upgrading. In came Gene Smith. He fixed the lack of youth, fixed the character issues and solved a few positions. No matter what moves were made though, we all knew that the rebuilding process would require more than one summer to create a Super Bowl caliber team. This offseason we can heighten our expectations.
Going into the 2010 offseason, optimism should be abound on Big Cat Country. There is an undeniable core group of young players that this team can build around. There are still positions that need fixing and while it will be hard to fix them all with 5 draft picks, In Gene We Trust.
There were 572,190 hits on BCC in 2009 and we'll try to surpass that mark in 2010. Thank you for a great 2009 season BCC nation.
-Adam Stites
A couple notes that Week 17 for the upcoming offseason/season:
The Jaguars have the #10 draft pick.
The 2010 Jaguars will play the Broncos, Chiefs, Eagles, Redskins, Titans, Colts, Texans and Browns at home.
They will play the Raiders, Chargers, Cowboys, Giants, Titans, Colts, Texans and Bills on the road.