<p style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">I haven't been this confident about a draft in any that I can remember. Dave Caldwell's scouting process sets the team up for success. Doing it the way they do it, keeping the scouting staff, coaches and Dave's opinions all separate so nobody gets swayed one way or another is a fantastic system.
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<p style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">One huge difference I see in this FO and the Gene Smith regime is this: Gene told us he had a plan...and didn't appear to follow it. Dave has a plan...and you can clearly see it develop as he drafts his guys. You can see the plan coming into fruition. Gene's 'plan' appeared to be a bunch of [BAD WORD REMOVED]. Gene says one thing and does another. Caldwell does what he needs to do in order to get his guys that fit his plans.
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<p style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">I was high on Gene when he started and defended him. He spoke big and followed through with nothing to show for it. I was excited by Gene's words, they made me a fan, I followed him. As Gene went on it was clear he wasn't doing what he mentioned as the 'plan' and it showed with his drafts. Which in turn showed on the field.
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<p style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">I was hesitant, to an extent, to get fully invested in Dave Caldwell. I was bit and burned by Gene Smith. I don't fault Gene, it wasn't as if he
tried to pick the wrong guys. It simply didn't work.
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<p style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">This draft by Dave, coupled with the FA signings and last years draft, tells me we have a man in charge that finally knows what he's doing and he's actually doing it! Praise the Lord! This team has suffered from poor drafting for too darn long. Rejoice, Jacksonville, barring health concerns Dave has a solid plan in place to turn this team around.
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<p style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Jungle Cat can poo on Dave all he wants. The only one full of poo in that discussion is Jungle Cat. Dave "doesn't know football", my butt he doesn't know football. Dave proved that this weekend.
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<p style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">I'm sold on Dave Caldwell. One draft could have been a fluke. That wasn't going to sell me on anything.
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<p style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Then this year..he continued to show me he has a vision of where this team needs to be and he wasn't afraid to pull the trigger and get his man when he needed to. Caldwell has had some very good people to learn behind and it's clear he was paying attention.
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<p style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">To top it all off...we have Gus Bradley. That's a whole different piece to the equation and I won't derail the thread for that.
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