Jaguars Timetable For Signing Josh Scobee

The Jaguars shot themselves in the foot last summer by not doing what was necessary to ensure that the re-signed Adam Podlesh and didn't leave themselves with a gaping hole at the punter position. Instead of paying the market value for one of the NFL's top 10 best punters, they allowed him to escape via free agency, signed Matt Turk instead and were left with a hole so big at the position that they elected to use a third round pick to close the hole back up.

One year later it appears the Jaguars' ability to negotiate with specialists hasn't improved much as Josh Scobee and the team can't work out a long-term deal to keep the 2004 5th round pick in North Florida for the foreseeable future. What's the difference between the Podlesh and Scobee negotiations? The lockout and the franchise tag.

While the lockout forced the Jaguars hand and didn't give them much time to work with Podlesh, they have a complete offseason to work out numbers with Scobee and his agent. And with the franchise tag already applied to the kicker, there's zero threat of him moving on.

So what's the rush? There is none. At all. While long offseason holdouts can sometimes affect the play of athletes (see Chris Johnson in 2011), do we really think Scobee's play is going to suffer? Come on, of course it won't.

For the Jaguars, as long as the deal gets done before September 9 when the Jaguars play the Vikings in week one, there is no harm done. If they can't get something done before that...well, then we have a problem. Until then, I'm not worried at all.