Quick Bytes: Your Daily Dose of Jacksonville Madness
* Floyd "Don't talk about my Pac Man Pick" Reese puts Matt Jones on his "hot seat" saying:
Last season, Jacksonville was a great example of a good team held back by the quarterback position. Health and an additional year of experience will solve the issue at quarterback. The Jaguars are young, physical and disciplined on defense. They have two excellent running backs and a group of tall receivers, but they need more production at wide receiver. Matt Jones is a physical freak. He has size, speed and uncanny athletic ability. He is certainly feeling the heat to become the player the Jaguars had envisioned.
I don't know that I agree. For the Jags I'd put Reggie Williams, Byron Leftwich or even Jack Del Rio on the seat before Jones.
- Brendon, over at MVN has a fantastic article about the Jaguars "possible" use of a situational 3-4 defense. I'm working on a bit more analysis of the idea, but I'd strongly recommend you take a look at it. It's something that would play well into our favor with all of our "tweener" DE/LB players.
- The same person also scored an interview with Leon Searcy, a player that older Jags fans will remember well! This part stings the most
The 1999 game was awful. We were stalked on both sides of the ball, and it was our year. Choach Coughlin kept preaching home-field advantage and we got it. We couldn't finish what we started, and loosing that game to the titans was a deflating experience.
- Speaking of 1999, Jag Nation has a look back at a possible "Marino Curse" effecting the team because of the dishonorable way they blew out Marino in his last professional game. I was at that game, way back in the day. Numbers like these only back up that idea:
The team's regular season record in the past seven seasons after the slaughter in Jacksonville has been an unimpressive 53-59. In the five seasons before the Marino game (including the 1999 record) the Jags accumulated 39 wins and just 33 losses, and that's including the franchise's first season in the league, in which they finished 4-12.
- The Official Page has a nice little section about how Rashean Mathis is stepping up as a team leader with the departure of Darius. No coach could ever reassure the team like he could here:
"When decisions are made the coaches can only tell you so much," Mathis said. "It's on us. You have been coached all your life. If you don't have it in your heart or your mind to step up and take on the challenge then it's not going to be done. It's within a team, a defense and within the secondary that we have to step up as a secondary unit and lead this team."
- Did you know that the Jaguars had the Toughest 8-8 season ever? Pro-Football Reference, aside from being one of the most interesting blogs out there, is an amazing resource for obscure uses of statistics.
Best 8- 8 jax 2006 +7.5 Worst stl 2004 -6.0
* Donovin Darius visited Oakland , Tampa Bay and Buffalo recently. Though I'd wager a decent sum that he ends up wearing the Carolina Blue.