Jacksonville Jaguars Fan Forums

OK.  The questions are simple.  How can a team improve the roster, and get worse results?  How can players who were good, come to the Jaguars and under-perform?  How can the Jaguars defy the rules of parity?  How can their turnover differential be so historically impossible?  How can they have a quarterback who has regressed so badly from his reasonable expectation, while seeing every other promising quarterback thrive.  How after about a decade of Peyton Manning can they not even compete in a division that 8-8 could win?  How do calls never go their way?  How do bounces never go their way?  The Jaguars situation seems almost impossible.  None of it adds up.  

 

I have a theory on what is happening, why no matter what we do, no matter how much talent we add, no matter how good or bad we are at coaching, we will still be bad.   And here it is: The Jaguars are out of sync with the rest of the NFL.  

 

The NFL is like a wave, constantly changing.  The Jaguars are not riding the wave.  They are not changing with the rest of the NFL.  They are behind, and wiping out. 

 

So who's to blame?  It starts with Caldwell.  At the very inception of his plan, the same plan that led him to hire Gus Bradley, there was a flaw.  His plan on building a team did not accurately project the NFL's future.  Same thing happened with Gene Smith.  His talent evaluation wasn't his main problem,  it was that he couldn't project the future NFL well enough in his rebuild, and wasn't skilled at building a team that would thrive in it.  He didn't master the timing.  He was building a team that may win now but would lose 3-4 years into the future.

 

And then we get to Bradley.  Bradley, part of the same plan, builds the team exactly as envisioned starting at 2013.  Couches it exactly as envisioned.  But the end result is a team that is destined to be a loser because they didn't correctly predict what the NFL would be 4 year into the future.  The Jaguars as a whole is now out of place in 2016.

 

There may be a lesson here.  The danger of "rebuilding" a team, building a team for a future you do not know.  

 

But he silver lining is this:  Caldwell may have made some mistakes in forming a longterm plan for the franchise, but he still may be a great talent evaluator and may still be a great GM.  He just has to recognize he's made a mistake, figure out how to correct it, and make the changes.  Khan has to be careful with Caldwell.  He can't just hire a GM off the Super Bowl winning team.  Firing Caldwell is a HUGE risk, because what you are replacing him with is an even bigger question mark.

 

I know some are finding plot holes in my story.  For instance, how possibly could Gene and David predict the quarterback play would be so poor.  Well it's beyond quarterback play.  It doesn't account for all the questions mentioned in the initial paragraph.  For instance, if Bortles had played well this year, he'd just be covering up all the other problems the team is having.  They would win more, but something may still be fundamentally wrong.  Dave would still have to fix the same issues, just he could do it in the background while the quarterback is covering for him.  Bortles just exposed a problem that was already there.  

 

 

 

Caldwell has made some serious and quite possibly job costing mistakes.

 

Gus is the number one mistake.  Keeping Gus for more than two years was a larger mistake.

Quote:OK.  The questions are simple.  How can a team improve the roster, and get worse results?  How can players who were good, come to the Jaguars and under-perform?  How can the Jaguars defy the rules of parity?  How can their turnover differential be so historically impossible?  How can they have a quarterback who has regressed so badly from his reasonable expectation, while seeing every other promising quarterback thrive.  How after about a decade of Peyton Manning can they not even compete in a division that 8-8 could win?  How do calls never go their way?  How do bounces never go their way?  The Jaguars situation seems almost impossible.  None of it adds up.  

 

I have a theory on what is happening, why no matter what we do, no matter how much talent we add, no matter how good or bad we are at coaching, we will still be bad.   And here it is: The Jaguars are out of sync with the rest of the NFL.  

 

The NFL is like a wave, constantly changing.  The Jaguars are not riding the wave.  They are not changing with the rest of the NFL.  They are behind, and wiping out. 

 

So who's to blame?  It starts with Caldwell.  At the very inception of his plan, the same plan that led him to hire Gus Bradley, there was a flaw.  His plan on building a team did not accurately project the NFL's future.  Same thing happened with Gene Smith.  His talent evaluation wasn't his main problem,  it was that he couldn't project the future NFL well enough in his rebuild, and wasn't skilled at building a team that would thrive in it.  He didn't master the timing.  He was building a team that may win now but would lose 3-4 years into the future.

 

And then we get to Bradley.  Bradley, part of the same plan, builds the team exactly as envisioned starting at 2013.  Couches it exactly as envisioned.  But the end result is a team that is destined to be a loser because they didn't correctly predict what the NFL would be 4 year into the future.  The Jaguars as a whole is now out of place in 2016.

 

There may be a lesson here.  The danger of "rebuilding" a team, building a team for a future you do not know.  

 

But he silver lining is this:  Caldwell may have made some mistakes in forming a longterm plan for the franchise, but he still may be a great talent evaluator and may still be a great GM.  He just has to recognize he's made a mistake, figure out how to correct it, and make the changes.  Khan has to be careful with Caldwell.  He can't just hire a GM off the Super Bowl winning team.  Firing Caldwell is a HUGE risk, because what you are replacing him with is an even bigger question mark.

 

I know some are finding plot holes in my story.  For instance, how possibly could Gene and David predict the quarterback play would be so poor.  Well it's beyond quarterback play.  It doesn't account for all the questions mentioned in the initial paragraph.  For instance, if Bortles had played well this year, he'd just be covering up all the other problems the team is having.  They would win more, but something may still be fundamentally wrong.  Dave would still have to fix the same issues, just he could do it in the background while the quarterback is covering for him.  Bortles just exposed a problem that was already there.

I read every word of your theory on what is wrong with this franchise, anxiously waiting for more details as to exactly how the team is not " projecting the future of the NFL ". Could you elaborate?

The 2 glaring things wrong with the Jaguar Franchise right now are HC and QB, the 2 most important pieces of any NFL Franchise.

 

The HC is historically bad and the QB is ranked at, or near, the bottom of most of the important QB stats, has a long wind up which is incredibly inaccurate and takes too much time, and throws an alarming number of interceptions and pick 6's.

 

Also, even though they have picked in the top 5 of the NFL draft for several years in a row now, they have missed on every one of those picks in finding a real game changing NFL Pro bowl type player. (We'll see how Ramsey turns out).

 

Those are the top reasons why the Jaguars are in the state they are in.

Quote:I have a theory on what is happening, why no matter what we do, no matter how much talent we add, no matter how good or bad we are at coaching, we will still be bad.   And here it is: The Jaguars are out of sync with the rest of the NFL.  

 

The NFL is like a wave, constantly changing.  The Jaguars are not riding the wave.  They are not changing with the rest of the NFL.  They are behind, and wiping out. 

 

So who's to blame?  It starts with Caldwell.  At the very inception of his plan, the same plan that led him to hire Gus Bradley, there was a flaw.  His plan on building a team did not accurately project the NFL's future.  Same thing happened with Gene Smith.  His talent evaluation wasn't his main problem,  it was that he couldn't project the future NFL well enough in his rebuild, and wasn't skilled at building a team that would thrive in it.  He didn't master the timing.  He was building a team that may win now but would lose 3-4 years into the future.

 

 

 

 

I don't understand this part of your post.   What do you mean by this: 

 

"He was building a team that may win now but would lose 3-4 years into the future."

 

Please elaborate.  

Here is what makes me think we are snake bitten. Tom Coughlin was our first coach, and was wildly successful for a franchise team. Bad contracts and overwhelming cap issues led to a lot of bad football to ensue, leading to his termination(for not giving up GM duties) When he left here though, he went on to bigger and better things and won 2 super bowls. We should have had at least one, per the 1999 Jaguars. 

 

We go get a new Head coach, Jack Del Rio. He has a good stint early, but eventually he runs out of talent GM Gene and Shack gave him. We came somewhat close to beating the then undefeated Patriots in his best year and were a few drops from  having a 3 point game late in that one. Anyway, talent ran dry and after a few down here he gets canned. he also gets a ring with Denver, and gets a new head gig where it looks like his new team is a favorite to represent the AFC(New England lost Gronk, not sure if they can beat Oakland if they play in Oakland and vise versa if NE is at home) in the super bowl. 

 

We then hire Mularkey, who was also the victim of just God awful QB play, old RBs, and overall terrible talent on this team from Gene Smith. He was fired when Caldwell came in for "his guy". He went to Tennessee and got an interim job and ended up the full time HC. He is now 6-6 with a power run game, looking to win the south. If Mariota can get hot in these last 4 games, Tennessee could be a lot like the 07 Jags, dark horse team with a sound defense, and a good run game. Not a team you want to face in the playoffs if your QB is playing well too. 

 

And then there is Gus, promising looking coach coming from a winning Seattle team with a defense that seems to be quite effective. Then our GM blows up everything and sets the team back at least 4 years(as of now) and honestly Gus hasn't done a great job even with the poor talent he had in year 1 and 2. He is now more than likely going to hit 50 losses before he is relieved, and our snake bitten tendencies will continue. We have had some good coaches come through here. We just haven't had everything line up yet. 

Our coaching is blah and our offense passing game is dismal with exception of lee and still no running game.  But I am still on board with Hackett.  Great playcalling mostly with no execution. 

Blowing up everything and going all young backfired. The rookie psyche's ended up being really fragile and they succumbed to losing, combined with a head-coach who appeared to have a habit of never pushing for any accountability, and we have this team that has no clue how to win, no competitive drive, and are just content with collecting a paycheck and checking their Instagram accounts

 

Losers across the board. The fans may appear to be the real loser, but we all can look in the mirror a couple of years down the road and honestly say that we gave this team 100% of our support, while the players will all be washed-up and broke, and will pretend to have CTE problems just so they can leech off the NFL lawsuit money to support their drug habits or pay off their debts (no sympathy from me)

Quote:Blowing up everything and going all young backfired. The rookie psyche's ended up being really fragile and they succumbed to losing, combined with a head-coach who appeared to have a habit of never pushing for any accountability, and we have this team that has no clue how to win, no competitive drive, and are just content with collecting a paycheck and checking their Instagram accounts

 

Losers across the board. The fans may appear to be the real loser, but we all can look in the mirror a couple of years down the road and honestly say that we gave this team 100% of our support, while the players will all be washed-up and broke, and will pretend to have CTE problems just so they can leech off the NFL lawsuit money to support their drug habits or pay off their debts (no sympathy from me)

I am one of the most positive Jags fans.  And this year we are cooked.  I mainly watch to see our D make some plays.  Our O is dismal.  And the playcalling since Hackett took over compared to Olsen is night and day.   And still don't matter.   There is no heart and never say die attitude out there. And you can't be acting like a diva receiver.  When ya are in fact not producing.   Notice lee is quiet and getting noticed.  And Robinson and Hurns are crying?  And yet who is producing and who is not? 

What's wrong with this franchise is what's been wrong for years and years now. They wait until the very last minute to carry out the inevitable. They wait too long to pull a QB, they wait too long to fire a coach ect.. I know sometimes it's best to be patient but sometimes you also need to recognize when to pull the plug.


Just my opinion.

The curse of Marino lives on...

Boot gus, oesher and go see the Voodoo Lady in Miami that Marino used.....

Pay hey whatever she wants.

 

Winger you're absolutely right....there IS a difference in patience and outright stupidity.

Patience plans,measures, marks and sees improvement.

Stupidity just blindly does whatever seems to fit at the time and calls it a process.

They left the bodies and they only moved the headstones.

Gus sucks, what can you say?


Del Rio had terrible scouts, had to play Manning twice a year, and had David Garrard throwing to no-name receivers. He still did twice as good as Gus did. He never allowed his players to start whining.


I think if Del Rio was still here, the team would still be contending for the division title.


Caldwell is decent at evaulating talent, but the biggest mistakes he made were blowing up the roster and retaining Gus. He should be fired for those stupid moves.


As far as the state of the fanchise goes, it could be worse. The browns haven't won a playoff game since 1994 and haven't appeared since 2002. I only hope the Jaguars don't approach that dreadful statistic..

For one thing we followed possibly the worst GM in all of sports history with the worst Head Coach in NFL history.

Quote:For one thing we followed possibly the worst GM in all of sports history with the worst Head Coach in NFL history.

Becausejaguars

Quote:The 2 glaring things wrong with the Jaguar Franchise right now are HC and QB, the 2 most important pieces of any NFL Franchise.

 

The HC is historically bad and the QB is ranked at, or near, the bottom of most of the important QB stats, has a long wind up which is incredibly inaccurate and takes too much time, and throws an alarming number of interceptions and pick 6's.

 

Also, even though they have picked in the top 5 of the NFL draft for several years in a row now, they have missed on every one of those picks in finding a real game changing NFL Pro bowl type player. (We'll see how Ramsey turns out).

 

Those are the top reasons why the Jaguars are in the state they are in.

Quite true. On the one hand, you have Gus Bradley, who has failed to prepare the players to play winning NFL football. As a former defensive coordinator with the former world champ seahawks, he has tried to run that style defense here.... and it has failed miserably. Rather than use the strengths of the players he has, he has imposed the system that he is most familiar with... the result of which has been to set our players up for failure.

A winning coach will utilize the strengths of his players rather than impose a plan that his players aren't good at. Result; Gus Bradley is now one of the losing-est coaches in the history of the NFL. What professional players (who actually cares about winning) wants to listen to the losing-est coach in the history of the NFL?

 

Then you have Blake Bortles. He was drafted 3rd overall with known weaknesses in his fundamental passing skills. What weakness you say?

 

*he has a long 'baseball pitcher style' wind up before he passes the ball. It's too slow and sets him up to have the ball knocked out of his hand.

*if you observe Blake, you will notice that, more often than not, he stares down his intended target almost from the moment of the snap. This gives the defenders an easy key to follow. No wonder our receivers have trouble getting separation!

*His throwing style (the aforementioned 'baseball windup') and his footwork tend to lead to a wobbly, sloppy looking pass. A wobbly pass compared to a tight spiral will almost always have less velocity and be more inaccurate.

*he tends to overlook wide-open receivers in favor of his 'preferred' target of Allen Robinson. This leads to picks, and making himself and Allen Robinson look bad.

 

Now to be certain, the receivers haven't done Blake many favors in view of the number of dropped passes that have occurred this season already. If you already have an inaccurate quarterback and add receiver drops to that mix the outcome isn't going to be pretty; interceptions and 'pick sixes' become the order of the day... and that's just what Blake has been specializing in this season. 

 

It is thought by some that Bortles may have a shoulder injury that is causing the problems. If that is so, then it once again it comes back to the head coach allowing him to stay in the game instead of sitting him and allowing him to heal... or at least not make his resume look worse. We're already at 2-10 so what do we have to lose by letting the backups play? Nothing.

 

So who's fault is it that we're in this situation? IMHO, Dave Caldwell put us in this mess primarily due to retaining Gus Bradley when it became clear he wasn't getting the job done, and in selecting Blake Bortles 3rd over all. Bortles has proven he was not deserving of such a high draft pick and since it was known prior to his selection that he has issues with his passing skills... well, it was a major blunder to select him so high. Rather than admit his mistakes and try to fix them, Dave has allowed the situation to degenerate to this sorry state. 

 

I can see Dave getting a 'mulligan' for his selection of Gus... even his selection of Bortles. But taken together, and then not moving on from them when it had become clear they were at the heart of the problems.... almost unforgivable.

Quote:The 2 glaring things wrong with the Jaguar Franchise right now are HC and QB, the 2 most important pieces of any NFL Franchise.

 

The HC is historically bad and the QB is ranked at, or near, the bottom of most of the important QB stats, has a long wind up which is incredibly inaccurate and takes too much time, and throws an alarming number of interceptions and pick 6's.

 

Also, even though they have picked in the top 5 of the NFL draft for several years in a row now, they have missed on every one of those picks in finding a real game changing NFL Pro bowl type player. (We'll see how Ramsey turns out).

 

Those are the top reasons why the Jaguars are in the state they are in.

 

This is it right here.  This is why we have been bad for 9 years.  Garrard was a serviceable QB who had 1 mistake free season, and when the tried to force him to do more he couldn't perform.  Once they realized this, they ditched him for Gabbert.  Gabbert had zero vision or balls to stay in the pocket without running or self sacking.  Gene wouldn't admit his mistake, and blamed it on Del Rio.  Fast forward to now...we have a high school level coach with a QB who admits he can't throw the ball well. We should have held onto Del Rio until someone was able to give him a QB that could win games.  

 

Look at what Del Rio has done now.  Del Rio was not the problem.  His GM's and QB's sucked.  He's building Oakland like the bad boys they once were because he has Carr to work with.  Us...well, we are firing yet another coach and getting a new QB.

One bright spot is the defense. I accept that our points-per-game allowed is not very good, but I place a lot of that on the negative turnover ratio, resulting in pick-sixes and poor field position.

It's probably appropriate to bifurcate the discussion ( for my friends in Yeehaw Junction, look it up ) , and focus on the offense, since it's my belief that , given an average performance there, this team would be in contention for the AFC South title. I mention this because generalizing about this team, saying " they suck ", is not totally accurate, and it provokes backlash from players on the defensive side of the ball who are not to blame for this debacle.