Doug Marrone: ‘We only won 3 football games. We have a lot to prove.’

The Jacksonville Jaguars held their third organized team activity (OTA) on Friday, which was followed by head coach Doug Marrone meeting with the media. Marrone’s press conferences thus far have been the polar opposite of Gus Bradley’s press conferences, in that Marrone seems to be genuine in the information he’s giving compared to Bradley pretending like everything was great.

It didn’t sound like Marrone was too pleased with what he saw through the first week of OTAs.

“I am just being honest,” Marrone said when he was asked about sounding disappointing with where the team is at after a full week. “We are a team that won three football games. I would be lying to you guys if I came up here and said everything is great. Listen, this is where we are. Listen, we only won three football games. We have a lot to prove.”

I feel like Marrone is stealing my gimmick here, in that he is essentially stating that the Jacksonville Jaguars are bad until they aren’t.

Jokes aside, this is another area where I will give the Jaguars credit. It’s something they should have done a lot sooner, but it appears they’re willing to admit when things are bad and focus on fixing them. Marrone did a nice job communicating that to the media, which in turn communicates that to the fans.

“We have a lot of work to put in on the field. We have to do those things and put that work in. I am not the type of person that is going to sit up here and sell some ‘BS’. I am not going to do that,” Marrone continued. “Are there certain things that are going on out there that are good? Absolutely, there are. I am talking about overall, as a whole, we have a long way to go and we have to continue to keep our nose to the ground and keep working. Really, just all the way up until, we will be coaching and doing everything we possibly can right up until that first kickoff when everything does count.”

It is refreshing in a way to have a coach who appears to be a straight shooter, even if it’s not what you want to hear. Sometimes the fans need that and more importantly, sometimes the players need that. It’s hard to learn and grow if you don’t know what you’re failing at or even told that you’re failing. If you’re always doing well and everything is going great, how do you actually improve and why aren’t you winning games?

People can call it old school, or the Parcells way (“You are what your record says you are!”) or whatever, but right now it’s the hard truth in that the Jaguars are bad until they’re not. Marrone knows that’s the challenge ahead of them and the only way to get to the finish line is to know where the starting point is.

There’s nothing wrong with him being disappointed in how the team looked the first three OTAs in May. In fact, I’d argue it’s good that he didn’t like what he saw, because now they know what they need to work on.