FanPost

Jaguars need leadership across the board

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In 2017 the Jacksonville Jaguars looked the part of the next big thing. Taking the New England Patriots to the wire in the AFC Championship game, but falling just short of victory, the team still checked all the boxes. There was young talent flowing at multiple positions. Myles Jack and Telvin Smith were fast playmakers that served to negate opposing tight-ends and running backs in the passing game. Jalen Ramsey was a brash lockdown cornerback that forced quarterbacks to test other route trees. Yannick Ngakoue was a blue collar threat at defensive end. Leonard Fournette was the power back that would wear down opposing defenses. Even the loss of WR Allen Robinson to a week 1 ACL tear promised hope of a complete recovery, solidifying the Jaguars receiving corps as a three-deep threat along with Allen Hurns and Marquise Lee.

Their field general, Doug Marrone, shone as a player friendly coach who could still get the best from the squad. Equally likable in press conferences, his affable nature made him an easy fan favorite after years of arrogance from Jack Del Rio. Marrone had already proven a degree of success in Buffalo, and the 2017 season simply validated that he was capable of getting the most from his players.

The fall, however, was hard and fast, partly due to mismanagement at the quarterback position with Blake Bortles, Allen Robinson leaving the club, the retirement of middle linebacking stalwart Paul Posluszny, and a defense that overall was unable to match their playmaking ability from the previous season.

Fast-forward to 2020 and the Jaguars roster is but a shell of 2017, with the most prominent departure being Ramsey, whose well documented distaste for Tom Coughlin led to him eventually being traded to the Los Angeles Rams. Add to that Ngakoue's holdout, and you have a team that looks much like a rudderless ship during a category 5 hurricane.

The question of leadership has been asked of this team for many years. Is Shad Khan making the right decisions to make this team successful? His argument for multiple London games has easily left distaste in the mouths of the faithful. Does the coaching staff know what they are doing? Defensive play calling of Todd Wash has been an ongoing debate. Has Doug Marrone lost the locker room, or are the players simply selfish? The persona of the team seemed more professional with Posluszny in the mix, but even with the strength of players like Calais Campbell there was still a lack of team-first behavior.

Some will try to look for a single root cause to the problem, but things are rarely that simple. A fine resource to pull from is a bit of history from the life of Vince Lombardi.

In his book When Pride Still Mattered, David Maraniss wrote about the challenge presented to the Green Bay Packers during the 1959 season, Lombardi's first year as head coach. The Packers started out strong, winning their first three games, including a huge 9-6 win over the Chicago Bears. Accolades started reigning down on Lombardi.

The turnaround coach was bathed in sporting press platitudes. Tom Miller, team publicist, declared that Lombardi could have his choice of "being mayor of Green Bay or governor of Wisconsin." Headlines pronounced Lombardi a "Miracle Man". One New York newspaperman noted that "not since Napoleon's escape from Elba has such a spirit been generated as the aroused hopes of Green Bay citizens over the comeback of their team."

I liken such sentiment to what happened on September 16th, 2019. After a 31-20 home victory over the New England Patriots, the Jaguars sat at 2-0 and had purged the taste of that Patriots loss from the mouth of every Jaguars player and fan.

The team would go on to win only three more games the rest of the season.

Lombardi's inaugural season had its own valley. After the strong start, the Packers found themselves mired in a five game losing streak, with the sheen of the Lombardi campaign have worn off.

A test of that confidence came soon enough, along with a reminder that any coach, even one as effective as Lombardi, is not everything in football, that players also matter. By the time the Packers played their fourth game of the 1959 season against the Los Angeles Rams, they had lost their roughneck fullback, Jim Taylor, who had only just begun to show his great promise. A freak injury put him out of the lineup for several games.

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Three other starters were injured as well in more traditional football ways, and the Packers were outmatched by the Rams, losing 45-6.

Maraniss continues by telling how quarterback Bart Starr, the heir apparent from the University of Alabama, was in "despair" over his lack of playing time behind quarterback Lamar McHan.

In spite of this setback, the Packers would go on to a 7-5 record, good enough for third place. More importantly it was the first winning record for the Packers since 1947. Bart Starr assumed the position of starting quarterback after an injury to McHan, and the offense began performing with greater efficiency.

In a post-season interview, Lombardi had this to say about his team.

The Packers might not yet be the best club in the league, Lombardi told Gifford, "but in one quality there are few like it. We have great determination. And in Bart Starr we're going to have one of the great quarterbacks in football. In fact, Frank, with what we've already shown, it makes me want to look forward to next season."

Maraniss details how the players felt they learned as much from the losses as they did the wins. Approaching defeat as a learning experience, Lombardi was able to exorcise the "defeatism" that existed under the previous head coach, Scooter McLean. If the team won a sloppy game, Marniss writes, Vince was more angry than if they had lost a game where they gave 100% effort.

Lombardi's emphasis on discipline, on getting it right regardless of how many times you had to practice it, shaped an attitude in the players that told them success was not far away. It's hard to imagine anything close to that being part of this Jaguars team since 2017.

I am not making a comparison of Lombardi to Marrone by any stretch, nor am I expecting Gardner Minshew to be the efficient leader Lombardi found in Starr. The lesson learned from the 1959 Packers is the importance of having a coach committed to a process and players willing to commit to the process. The outcome is always undetermined, but if there ceases to be trust in any part of the relationship then it becomes difficult to overcome adversity.

A prime example might be the video of Allen Robinson screaming at Blake Bortles during a preseason practice where the quarterback had once again underthrown the receiver. When your receivers don't trust your quarterback, or when your cornerback doesn't trust the front office, you are doing to see the team erode. Players going to social media to express their desire to find another team is not going to breed any level of commitment to winning. Instead it highlights an attitude of dissatisfaction, with goal of getting a paycheck elsewhere.

If this team wants to pull itself from the jaws of what might be called a 13 year losing streak (save 2017), there cannot be an incident of Fournette coming off the bench to punch an opposing player. There cannot be a coach who is not focused on enforcing a disciplined work ethic, and there must be a quarterback for whom that coach can rely to steady the ship during the storm.

Who is primarily responsible? It is everyone. If you think that success can be found by simply placing all blame on one person, you will continue to be defeated. As Lombardi said about himself, "You defeat defeatism with confidence, and confidence comes from the man who leads." He is absolutely correct, but everyone on the team has to be a leader with this attitude.

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