This is a very important week for the Jacksonville Jaguars and more importantly quarterback David Garrard. This week could revive David Garrard's standing with the Jaguars fan base, or it could continue his spiral to destruction.
Yeah, it is that big. It's a career week for David Garrard.
"I wish I could erase it from my memory," David Garrard said two weeks ago following an abysmal performance against the San Diego Chargers, where he threw four interceptions. Lord knows he had the same feeling after Sunday's travesty against the Philadelphia Eagles where Garrard had arguably the worst game of his professional career. "We just have to regroup. We just have to come back out this week and get back to playing Jaguar football," Garrard said Sunday after the game.
Garrard's game has been poked and prodded and analyzed enough, I'm not going to rehash that. He was atrocious and there's no if's and's or but's about it. It was on him, he stunk.
"We‘ve just got to make sure we’re doing everything we can to help our guy get a hot hand because he certainly didn’t have that today," head coach Jack Del Rio said Sunday. I wrote last week that the offense was going to have to carry this football team and the team would go how Garrard goes. That reared it's ugly head on Sunday. Garrard was awful and the offense in turn was awful.
If David Garrard wants to save his career, he needs to regroup this week and play at some level above awful. I'm not being over dramatic about this, either. It's a career defining week. Sure, the Jaguars don't have a viable alternative to turn to at the back up position right now with Luke McCown tearing his ACL in San Diego, but the Jaguars are looking. It was pretty telling when the Jaguars wouldn't even pull Garrard out of the game Sunday, that's how bad the quarterback depth is.
It's rumored the Jaguars will put in a waiver claim for former Buffalo Bills quarterback Trent Edwards today, but that's not going to solve anything. At best he's just someone else. The only person who can save the Jaguars season right now and rescue it from David Garrard is David Garrard. Even if the Jaguars make a switch to Todd Bouman, Trent Edwards, or even Keith Null.. it's not getting better.
Jack Del Rio was asked point blank yesterday how long he could stick with Garrard at quarterback.
His response: "As long as he's our best option."
Not really a ringing endorsement.
Garrard knows it's important, he said as much on Sunday, "This is definitely a tough pill to swallow. It was really embarrassing out there. Our fans deserve more than that; this team, this organization deserves more than that. We definitely have to right the ship and right it fast."
Right now, the ship is almost underwater. It's up to David Garrard to fix it.