The Jacksonville Jaguars completed their offseason training activities yesterday with a final practice.  With this, the Jaguars now have 45 days until the opening of training camp on Saturday, July 26th.  Most players and coaches will take a vacation and spend time with their families as what promises to be a very long season.(February, perhaps!) It's time well deserved, as there's very little idle time between the end of the season and the start of draft season. 

Interestingly, I'm less morose about the beginning of the "dead zone" than usual.  I typically dread the end of OTA's and minicamp because it's the end of any real Jaguars news and other sports are either ending (basketball) or mind-numbing (baseball).  This time, I feel anxious about the start of training camp and the season, but there's something reassuring about all this time away from the team.

Maybe it's all the questions that I need to sort out.  Questions about the roster, questions about the playbook, questions about the state of the team.  The 2008 Jacksonville Jaguars are in so many ways a different team than we're used to.  While the Jaguars always suffered from roster shifts, free agency, etc, I can't recall a year of such a drastic remaking of the team, from the coaches to the players than this offseason.  I think that's why I'm ready for a few weeks to make sense of it all. 

During the next six weeks, Big Cat Country is going to take an exhaustive look at our roster, our coaches, and what we project to be the playbook.  They'll be an interview here and there, some special guests, and hopefully the best Jaguars coverage you can find.  We'll have some fun, of course, but we'll be keeping a close eye on the calendar.  July 26th, so close, yet so far away.

Let's take a quick look at what we know after OTA's and what is still uncertain:

We Know:

1. David Garrard is on his game.  Recent Jaguars history has shown us that our passing game is slow to develop.  Not this time, David's throwing freaking lasers, our receivers are catching passes, and things are on track.

2. Gregg Williams is experimenting with the attack.  The Jaguars "new" defense, so far, is blitz heavy.  It's unclear if this is a way for Gregg Williams to figure out what his players can do or if it's a sign of things to come.  It's obvious that the defense we fielded against the Patriots in the Playoffs is dead and gone.

3. Derrick Harvey and Quentin Groves are fast.  It's hard to measure their impact in their shorts and t-shirts, but speed is obvious.  In fact, the entire defense reeks of speed from top to bottom.  Can you find a faster defensive group than Harvey, Groves, Mathis, Durant, Peterson, and Nelson?

4. Richard Collier and Justin Durant are rapidly replacing Khalif Barnes and Clint Ingram at their respective starting positions.

We Don't Know:

1. Our wide receivers: I can tell you for sure that Porter, Williams, and Northcutt will be our X, Y, and Slot receivers accordingly.  I can tell you with a strong degree of probability that Troy Williamson and John Broussard will be one of the two remaing roster spots.  Matt Jones, Mike Walker, and the rest of the bunch are competing for one remaining spot, as carrying six receivers is foolish.

2. Can Troy Williamson keep on catching when the pads are on and it really matters.  Yes, Troy has excelled during practice, but he's looked pretty good in Vikings OTA's as well.  In fact, we've got questions about all the first round reconstruction projects.  Is Jimmy Kennedy going to turn it on at defensive tackle?  Will Matt Jones turn his career around and finally take the next step?

3. Will the Jaguars actually bring the heat?  Yes, our defense looks fast, but how will it translate in the pads on environment of camp and the preseason? 

4. Will the Jaguars make it to September without major injury?  No matter how important practice is to developing a playoff team, the most important thing is for the Jaguars to start the season fast and healthy.  The AFC South will be decided in the first four weeks of the season, starting slow and injured greatly effects our ability to win the division.

That's my quick take.  We've got weeks and weeks to flesh this out further, so be prepared for more analysis.

I'd like to know what you'd like to know about the Jaguars during the dead zone?  What would you like to discuss, debate, analyze, etc?  What questions do you have about the 2008 Jaguars?  I'm happy to explore any topic, so let me know what you're thinking!

-Chris

Welcome to a very special edition of "Mythbusters".  Today's episode focuses on an NFL team that is surrounded by poorly researched talking points and rehashed arguments that hold little water.  Rather than repeat the same nonsense, Big Cat Country will attempt to settle these "myths" once and for all.  If you're looking for actual Mythbusters, feel free to look at these fun pictures.

Myth  "Jacksonville is a "College Town".

College Town: the two words that are required to be mentioned in the first three sentences of any national coverage of the Jacksonville Jaguars.  The city of Jacksonville, according to this myth, is unable to maintain a relationship with the Jaguars because their focus is on the college game of the University of Florida and Florida State University, with a little bit of University of Georgia and University of Miami tossed in for flavor.  Further explanations of this myth clam that people who are college football fans first and foremost cannot appreciate the Jaguars style of play because they are used to high scoring one-sided games.  Another twist on the myth implies that "college town" fans expect college type seasons of 10-1 or 11-0, rather than the realistic 10-6, 9-7 of a good NFL team.

Evidence to support this myth typically involves stadium attendance at the Florida/Georgia game, proximity to Gainesville and Tallahassee, and the occasional "local blackout" of Jaguars games.

Attacking the Evidence:

The Florida-Georgia game requires up to 80,000 seats in Jacksonville Municipal Stadium through the use of temporary seating.  JMS's "capacity" is 76,787, with the Jaguars covering 10,000 seats for about 67,000 seats for Jaguars games.  Because 80,000 people attend a once a year game from two entire states, the city of Jacksonville is seen as a college town that cannot support an NFL team.  Vic Ketchman of Jaguars.com makes a very good case:

Florida-Georgia drives the perception that Jacksonville is a college football town because seats are added. Hey, if Penn State and Ohio State played at Heinz Field they’d have to add seats. Does that make Pittsburgh a college football town? The same would be true if Florida and Georgia played in the Georgia Dome, or Texas and Oklahoma played in Texas Stadium, or Alabama and Tennessee played in Nashville. Pro football doesn’t have 100,000-seat stadiums. Pro football goes for high demand, not high supply.

Interestingly, citing the Florida-Georgia game is used as evidence of the "college town", but the fact that the ACC Championship game is suffering a critical depleation of sales and is moving from Jacksonville to Tampa or Charlotte gets little mention. Going from 72,749 in 2005, then 62,850 in 2006 and 53,212 in a "college town" (remember, FSU and UM are in the ACC), should indicate that there's more to the situation.

The Stadium:

This of course assumes that filling a stadium with 80,000 fans once is the same thing as filling a stadium with 67,000 fans eight times a year.  I say eight times, because I hardly expect full attendance at preseason games.  Of the "blackouts" last season, all of them had full stadiums on Sunday.  What happens is that the NFL decides to blackout a game based on a deadline a few days before the game.  Ticket sales, on the other hand, go right up and through game day.  The stadium is full, or damn close to it on Sundays.  We're talking about a shortfall of maybe a thousand tickets or less.

Jacksonville has a huge stadium for a market of its size.  With the seats uncovered, it is in the top five largest stadiums in the NFL.  Based on market size, the number determined by the league to represent the Jaguars "turf", has a population of 1,100,491.    The average MSA size is 4,485,695.  New York City, with over 21 million, is the largest MSA.    As a comparison, Indianapolis has a MSA of 1.6 million, and the RCA Dome seats 57,980/Lucas Oil Stadium 63,000.  A market with a half million more potential buyers has a stadium with significantly less seats.  The Jaguars at their absolute worst in ticket sales (2000) would have sold out the RCA dome in most games. 

The number that matters most is the Population per Seat figure.  There are 15.08 potential ticket buyers in the Jacksonville MSA per seat.  That's the highest figure in the league.  The league average is almost 70 per seat.  That means that four times as many fans, by percentage, are going to Jaguars games than the NFL average. 

That indicates the opposite of a "college town", when more people are buying tickets than the NFL average. JaxJagfl.com does a fantastic job breaking down these numbers, if you'd like more information.  For the Jaguars to be "right sized" for a 1 to 70 ratio of seats to population, the stadium would require less than 17,000 seats, something that's absurd.  The Jaguars sell more seats per population than any other team in the NFL, with the occasional exception of Buffalo.

Buffalo, by the way, has a million people in Rochester, and a million or two in Toronto. Jacksonville has an Ocean, Daytona, Gainesville, and I-10 as it's nearest neighbors and they're still selling seats.

Television:

The Florida-Georgia game was the second most watched sporting event in the Jacksonville MSA last year.  Meanwhile, the highest was Colts at Jaguars, and 15 of the top 20 sporting events were NFL games.  Again, I'll defer to Vic Ketchman , who has access to ratings numbers that I do not:

The Jaguars are so dominant in the ratings that their preseason game in Green Bay got substantially higher ratings than three of the five college games in the top 20. The Patriots at Cowboys game also got substantially higher ratings than three of the five college games in the top 20. The Bucs at Jaguars preseason game got a 14.4 to a 14.6 for Florida at Kentucky. When you look at those numbers, it’s impossible to call this a college town.

The Jacksonville Gators:

Yes, there is a very popular football team 90 minutes to the southwest of Jacksonville.  The Florida Gators are the most popular college team in Florida, and Jacksonville is home to many of their fans, alumni, and supporters.  Tim Tebow is from a High School just south of the city (Nease), Fred Taylor is from UF, and the Jaguars last two first round picks are from UF. 

Some speculate that there is an ulterior motive in selecting Reggie Nelson and Derrick Harvey, that they'll attract Gator fans to Jaguars games.  This is silly.  I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that any benefit of ticket sales is completely secondary to the player being selected by the Jaguars.  No team worth its salt would ever select a player based on ticket sales rather than team needs/best player available.  It's irresponsible to assume the Jaguars would operate otherwise. 

It is certainly an added benefit though.  I see nothing wrong with people following the Gators and the Jaguars, other than my Florida State bias, of course.  I follow college football very closely, and I'm perfectly capable of understanding both.  The nonsense about fans expecting college type seasons out of the Jaguars is the most condescending argument I've ever heard.  What they're really saying is that they think Jacksonville is too dumb/redneck/poor/etc to understand the difference between the college game and the "more sophisticated" NFL game.

Why does the myth stick?

It's simple really, there's just not enough time to explain all these factors.  People react to what they see.  When the Jaguars hosted the Indianapolis Colts on Monday Night Football, it was shortly after the Stadium needed the temporary seating for another event.  So when the National Media comes to town, not only do they see 10,000 covered seats, but an extra 8,000 seats that are only used for the big college games and the Super Bowl.  They use their eyes and write a story under deadline based on perception.  Perception, in this case, does not equal reality.

Frankly, Jacksonville will fight with this perception until every game is sold out in advance and the words 'blackout" are never mentioned.  If we have to debate and explain things like MSA and seat per population we've already accepted the media's premise that Jacksonville isn't an NFL town.  The very act of defending the city adds to the perception that it's too small, and draws more bad attention.  It will only be when the Jaguars can avoid this subject entirely, that this myth will die.

Results:

I think it's conclusive that Jacksonville is NOT a mere "college town", and that the continued existence of this myth is a combination of lazy journalism and poorly constructed arguments.

I'm sure Jamie and Adam would agree that this myth is...

BUSTED

Next time on Mythbusters, a look at the Jacksonville Jaguars and the dreaded "relocation".

-Chris

Contrary to other reports , the Jacksonville Jaguars have used the 2008 offseason to announce to the division that they are the team to beat in the AFC South.  While the Indianapolis Colts deserve the respect due to a six-time division winner, there is no reason to assume that the reigning champs have done enough to hold their position at the top of the South.

Yes, this article intended as a bit of Counter Battery fire toward my good friend and Indianapolis Colts writer over at Stampede Blue.  Big Blue Shoe, as he calls himself, delights in mocking our Jaguars whenever possible, in what can only be a defense mechanism to the pain and suffering that Jacksonville is going to give their team in 2008. 

And we can forgive him, it's merely one step in the Kubler-Ross "Stages of Grief ": In this case, our fellow Colts fans are deeply in denial of the changes and progress made by the Jaguars during this offseason.  Denial manifests itself in peculiar ways in a fanbase,  the Colts will find their evidence in attacking statistics from last season that make the Jaguars look like an Arena League team and hope that the trend continues.

Specifically:

Now before I get flamed, hear me out. The Jaguars are a very good team at shutting down an opponents running game. However, against the pass, the Jaguars flat out suck. They can't pressure the QB and their secondary is highly suspect. The Jaguars defense in 2007 allowed opposing playoff QBs to complete 78% of their passes for 599 yards, 5 TDs and 2 INTs.

In the modern NFL, that is a sucky defense.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there is simply no way the Jacksonville Jaguars field anywhere close to that poor of a pass defense in 2008.  The Jaguars secondary in 2007 featured a rookie tossed into the starting role with Reggie Nelson,  a 33 year old Sammy Knight playing a fill-in role with Gerald Sensabaugh on Injured Reserve, an Injured Rashean Mathis, and a healthy but out-of-position Brian Williams rounding out the starters. 

Secondary Concerns:

There was a reason that Sammy Knight often led the team in tackles week in and week out, that's because he could not cover a tight end to save his life and would get targeted every single week.  That the Jaguars held together any sort of defense with his inability to cover is still remarkable.  Sammy Knight is now a New York Giant, and we won't have to worry about him again.

In his place the Jaguars will feature Brian Williams, a former Cornerback that is a natural at Safety.  In fact, he's a bigger version of the Colts safety Bob Sanders.  Williams is going to move to Strong Safety and be used all over the field by Gregg Williams, both in run support and in pass coverage.  Where tight ends ran right by Sammy and were wide open, they'll have a guy that shut down Randy Moss running side by side.

Let's not also forget that our Free Safety, Reggie Nelson, will have another year under his belt.  Gregg Williams and Donnie Henderson will demand that Reggie steps up the intellectual side of his game, especially considering that he'll be playing a lot more center field with the Jaguars likely emphasis on pressuring the quarterback.

Finally, add in a healthy Gerald Sensabaugh, who struggled in September because he was playing with a torn labrum, and went on injured reserve when he tore the other one, and Florence/Mathis on the outside, and you've got a recipe for a huge improvement in our secondary.

The Quarterback must go down, and he must go down hard:

Before we discuss our changes at defensive end, lets take a moment consider the messages sent from the front office about our defensive line.  The Jaguars, I will admit, have made mistakes with their draft picks.  Where they are batting .1000 are in resigning and extending their players. You simply do not hear about the Jaguars offering their players big extensions and then having the player fail to perform.  The Jaguars sent Marcus Stroud to Buffalo and extended the contracts of Rob Meier and Tony McDaniel, both of which will be critical in the new "Teal Curtain".  It's to be expected that the Colts disregard Tony McDaniel as a threat, they've never really seen him.  Let's just say that Peyton Manning will have a 6-7, 310lb beast in the middle, just like Stroud used to be.

The outside, of course, is going to be manned on occasion by the rookies, Derrek Harvey and Quentin Groves.  It's completely fair to assume that because they are first year players that their impact will be minimal.  The problem with that reasoning is that both of these players will be used as pass rushers, an area where physical gifts are more important than experience.  When Quentin Groves takes the field on 3rd and 7, it will not be terribly hard for him to figure out what he's supposed to do.  Harvey has it a little tougher, as you'll see him playing the run and the pass more frequently.

In either case, it's not as though they'll be all alone on the ends.  Reggie Hayward will be two years removed from his injury, Paul Spicer will eventually be extended, and the group will have a good shot at being this years New York Giants in regards to attacking the quarterback.

Absolute Nonsense:

I hate to nitpick, but this is the most deranged thing I've ever read:

There is not one single area where Jacksonville is "better" than Indy. Maybe their special teams coverage units. Maybe. Everything else is a clear advantage for the Colts. Indy's QB, WRs, o-line, d-line, TEs, CBs, safeties, LBers, kicker, and punter are all better than Jacksonville's. Even the running back position favors Indy.

I'll grant Quarterback, I'll even concede the offensive line and Tight Ends.  But to say that the Colts have better Linebackers, Defensive Line, and Secondary than the Jaguars is an ignorant statement.  The Jaguars use their linebackers a little differently than the Colts do in the "Dungy 2", and really can't be compared directly.  The combination of Durrant, Ingram, Peterson, and Smith give the Jaguars three guys who can play every combination of linebacker spots, the speed to play sideline to sideline, and a nasty hard hitting attitude.  I'd take our bench linebacker over any of the Colts starters.  Remember, the biggest knock on the Jaguars pass rushers is that they're young.  None of our guys are coming off of a Lis Franc, like Mr. Freeney.

And the Running Backs?  Are you serious?  I don't care who the third and fourth running backs are on the Colts roster, Fred and Maurice are enough to do the trick.  Call me crazy, but were something terrible to happen, Greg Jones would surprise a lot of people with his ability to run the ball. 

It is absolute absurdity to assume that a team is completely and utterly the master of another.  The Jacksonville Jaguars of 2008 will be unlike any the Colts have ever seen.  While it's easy to write the team off because they've not proved anything on the field yet, the Jaguars have made all the right moves to overtake the Colts in the AFC South.

Enjoy the Homerism for now Indy, in a few months we'll give you a reality check...

-Chris