I don't know about you.. but I am tired of the media making it seem that Jacksonville doesn't deserve a team. With all the Jaguars attendance "problems" lets look at the reality of the situation and seperate fact from fiction.

Lets start with last weeks attendance :

1. Washington - 90,670
2. NY Jets - 78,127
3. NY Giants - 77,245
4. Kansas City - 71,297
5. Houston - 70,974
6. New Orleans - 70,051 
7. Buffalo - 69,295
8. Philadelphia - 69,144
9. Tennessee - 69,143
10. New England - 68,756
11. Seattle - 67,044
12. Jacksonville - 63,636
13. Pittsburgh - 63,609 (Does Pittsburgh not deserve a team?)
14. Chicago - 62,080 (What about Chicago?)
15. St. Louis - 52,440 (Didn't they already lose a team..?)
16. Tampa Bay - 47,211 (Hmm... no big media attention here?.. curious..)

BTW to keep up on attendance of all the teams in the NFL during the season ESPN has a page for that:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2010

OK so lets look at stadium size, as the Jaguars are constantly criticized for covering some of the seats because they are "too small". Lets see what "too small" really means.

I'm curious since Jacksonvilles market is so small and the Jaguars have to cover seats, how this "proves" the team doesn't deserve to be here..? If thats the case whats that say about  The Colts or The Lions or The Bears who play in much smaller stadiums and in some cases smaller than even EverBank (with its covered seats).

Whats it say about the BIlls who play one preseason and one regular season game in a stadium that holds 54,000 and its not even in thier home town?

Using the NFLNetwork/SI Logic that Jacksonville is too small because they had to cover seats. Apparently Indy was "too small" for a NFL Team because they made thier stadium smaller.. same with Pittsburgh, looks as if Chicago is "too small" for a team as well as they renovated thier stadium into the smallest in the NFL.

The reality is that EverBank / AllTel when built was the 4th largest stadium in the league. Even with the seats covered we are larger than 11 other stadiums, and would be the 6th largest stadium in the league if we didn't cover some of the seats.

So enough about the stadium.

In regards to the attendance issue, so far in 2010 we seem to be a little below average. Not horrible, but not as good as it could be, but obviously better than other teams this year are having it.

Now let us look at overall attendance from 2008 and 2009 since we HAD to have been the team with the lowest attendance right ? At least according to the way the media makes it look... WRONG again..

In 2009 Jacksonville was 30th at 49,651 avg attendance nothing to be proud about for sure.. But not the worst. The Jaguars were just below the Rams at 55,237, and above Detroit at 49,395 and Oakland at 44,284. Yet national media never gave Detroit, the Raiders or the Rams near the hassle they gave the Jaguars and thier fans.

For perspective lets look at 2008 as it was a much different story.

Notice two things.. we are just south of the middle of the pack in attendance.. AND Detroit and Oakland are 31 and 32.. St. Louis is 30. That is if you assume San Fran and Denver had better turn out than the top 16 and just didnt report it.

So in 2008 and 2009 Oakland and Detroit were at the bottom and although St Louis was just above Jacksonville in 2009, in 2008 they were 3rd from the bottom.  Yet for some reason the Jaguars (according to the sunday talking heads) are singled out for having major ticket sale problems.. but not the rest of the league ??? Our problems may have started in 2008-2009... but Oakland and especially Detroit have been at the bottom for over 5 years. With no one saying that Oakland or Detroit should move.. if anything its sadder for Detroit as they got a new state of the art stadium in 2002 (Which BTW holds 2500 less than Everbank with the seats covered).

That said, if your curious if the Jaguars sustain the 63,000-64,000 ticket sales in 2010.. that will put us above Chicago, Pittsburgh and Minnesota based on 2008 and 2009 averages. To be fair once you break 63,000 in attendance then it becomes more a matter of stadium capacity (see above).

Maybe someone could forward this exercise in statistics to NFL.com, the NFL Network, SI, and Bettis.. so they can finally get a clue.