With the Jacksonville Jaguars set to head to London on Thursday to take on the Buffalo Bills Sunday morning and the bye week around the corner, many thought that if there was another crushing loss pushing the Jaguars to 1-6 and Gus Bradley to 8-31 overall, owner Shad Khan could make a change. That doesn't seem to be the case, at least according to Alex Marvez of Fox Sports.
From what I've heard, Sunday isn't "win-or-else" scenario for @Jaguars HC Gus Bradley. Ownership still patient amid injuries/roster rebuild
— Alex Marvez (@alexmarvez) October 21, 2015
Not many expected the Jaguars to win a lot of games headed into the bye, but the frustration with their lack of success has been exacerbated by how the schedule shook out. The team face the Indianapolis Colts without Andrew Luck and a reeling Tampa Bay Buccaneers team with a rookie quarterback who couldn't stop turning the ball over. They also blew a fourth quarter lead against the Houston Texans on Sunday, dropping all three games in arguably the easiest stretch of schedule they'll have the entire season.
Bradley seemed to get the infamous "vote of confidence" on Tuesday, but Marvez's report seems to indicate it's not bad enough yet for Khan to make a move.
As for Marvez's point, I just don't get where the patience is coming from. Yes, the team took on a big time rebuild job, but this should be the season you're seeing results on the field, not continuing the trend of finding ways to lose games. Your team is supposed to be trending up, not on pace to finish with fewer wins than the blow up year, again.
As far as the Jaguars being hit with injuries, that's true, but I think it's overselling quite a bit to lay their 1-5 start at the feet of injuries. Sure, Julius Thomas was out, but he played the last two games and you still lost against bad teams. Sure, Sen'Derrick Marks and Dante Fowler have been out, but unless Dante Fowler is the second coming of Justin Houston, he's not changing the face of the season thus far. There hasn't been a singular or combination of injuries that you can point to for why the Jaguars have lost their past four games.
To me, this seems more like Shad Khan trying to squelch the week-to-week speculation that's inevitability going to come about Bradley's job. The schedule for the Jaguars after the bye week only gets more difficult, and just looking at it, it's hard to see more than two to three more wins on the horizon, if that.