Up to the coaches to create mismatches and put players in good position scheme wise. This game was an entire team meltdown, not one player. This looked like trying to be different game plan wise, just to be different. Stick with what won you the last few games until it doesn’t work.

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whoever thinks the loss is on Fournette is CLUELESS

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This is just dumb...however, I do believe he's not 100%. We haven't seen a play lately from him that's above the Xs and Os. We need him healthy in the playoffs.

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The coaches are too dependent on him and focus too much of the game plan around using him. There’s no balance with them. As for Fournette, he’s not running hard anymore. There’s a big difference in early season Fournette and the Fournette we see now. I don’t remember Fournette going down to a single tackler early on, and now he’s getting stopped early and often. I hope it’s injury related and can get over it.

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The coaches are too dependent on him and focus too much of the game plan around using him. There’s no balance with them. As for Fournette, he’s not running hard anymore. There’s a big difference in early season Fournette and the Fournette we see now. I don’t remember Fournette going down to a single tackler early on, and now he’s getting stopped early and often. I hope it’s injury related and can get over it.

^^  This

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Fournette once again contributed to a loss with his poor running. When Bortles has to take over you see what happens. Fournette was not worth the 4th overall pick.

^ same ol song and dance from the usual suspect:
"It's ALWAYS someone else's fault, Bortles is the bestest!"

One week it's LF to blame.
Another week it's the O-LINE to blame.
Following week, it's the "worst WRs in the NFL" to blame.
After that, it's the coaching to blame.
Then, it's the "Defensive PPG" to blame. 

It's NEVER Bortles' fault. He's GREAT! The rest of the team (and the inept Jag fans) are holding him back!


Give it a break man. It's a TEAM sport in the NFL. They're all in it together, and affect outcomes of games. Yes, even BB makes boneheaded mistakes at times too.


LF is a good player.

Don’t come at me with that usual suspect bull crap just because you can’t handle my opinion. There’s no troll job here. I lament the fact that Caldwell picked another First round bust. What is that like 3 now. And yet everyone will defend it to the ends of time. It’s obvious when watching Fournette how limited he is. He’s a battering ram that can’t sustain even one season at this level. He won’t last long and he’s already showing signs of chronic injury. 

 That doesn’t help anyone out on this team accomplish an offensive rhythm. This team will not accomplish what it wants till Caldwell is removed. You can’t miss on top five picks and Caldwell routinely does it. Fournette was a major reach. Sadly he’s not helping the jags offense progress because he’s a liability.

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Go Jags!

Fournette was a terrible pick due to his chronic ankle problems.

He'll probably never give the team more than a few good games a season until they let him walk in a few years. Considering the team was already loaded with talent it's going to be a long time until we get another top five pick and wasting this last one is going to set the team back compared to what it could have been had it taken someone that won't spend half of every season useless due to injury.

Arguing about where he was drafted is legit, especially when you can find guys like Kareem Hunt, Kamara, and many others like that in later rounds.

However, draft position aside, LF is a good player. You can see the big time difference in talent between him and the other RBs the Jags have. 

LF has power, speed, good moves, and initiates contact when needed. It's not his fault where he was drafted (just like the Fowler argument before). 

LF is definitely not the reason the Jags lose or Bortles sucks as the original poster is theorizing.

If there's ANY truth to that theory,, it's the coaching plan when LF is playing. 

As stated elsewhere too, the games LF didn't play and Bortles looked awesome were against TERRIBLE pass defenses (Bengals, Colts X2). Trying to connect Bortles' awesome play to LF not being in the game is disingenuous.

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^ same ol song and dance from the usual suspect:
"It's ALWAYS someone else's fault, Bortles is the bestest!"

One week it's LF to blame.
Another week it's the O-LINE to blame.
Following week, it's the "worst WRs in the NFL" to blame.
After that, it's the coaching to blame.
Then, it's the "Defensive PPG" to blame. 

It's NEVER Bortles' fault. He's GREAT! The rest of the team (and the inept Jag fans) are holding him back!


Give it a break man. It's a TEAM sport in the NFL. They're all in it together, and affect outcomes of games. Yes, even BB makes boneheaded mistakes at times too.


LF is a good player.

Don’t come at me with that usual suspect bull crap just because you can’t handle my opinion. There’s no troll job here. I lament the fact that Caldwell picked another First round bust. What is that like 3 now. And yet everyone will defend it to the ends of time. It’s obvious when watching Fournette how limited he is. He’s a battering ram that can’t sustain even one season at this level. He won’t last long and he’s already showing signs of chronic injury. 

 That doesn’t help anyone out on this team accomplish an offensive rhythm. This team will not accomplish what it wants till Caldwell is removed. You can’t miss on top five picks and Caldwell routinely does it. Fournette was a major reach. Sadly he’s not helping the jags offense progress because he’s a liability.

Your opinion is lacking facts.

Joeckel- 1st round bust-yes
Bortles- TBD
Fowler- TBD (in his 2nd playing season)
Ramsey- HOFer
Fournette- TBD (Rookie)

Factually, that's 1/5 first round picks for Caldwell that are busts so far.  You have to fairly give guys 3 seasons before declaring them a bust. 

Even if you want to declare Bortles a bust (which I think is naive) that would still only be 2/5 first round picks as a bust at this point.

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Don’t come at me with that usual suspect bull crap just because you can’t handle my opinion. There’s no troll job here. I lament the fact that Caldwell picked another First round bust. What is that like 3 now. And yet everyone will defend it to the ends of time. It’s obvious when watching Fournette how limited he is. He’s a battering ram that can’t sustain even one season at this level. He won’t last long and he’s already showing signs of chronic injury. 

 That doesn’t help anyone out on this team accomplish an offensive rhythm. This team will not accomplish what it wants till Caldwell is removed. You can’t miss on top five picks and Caldwell routinely does it. Fournette was a major reach. Sadly he’s not helping the jags offense progress because he’s a liability.

Your opinion is lacking facts.

Joeckel- 1st round bust-yes
Bortles- TBD
Fowler- TBD (in his 2nd playing season)
Ramsey- HOFer
Fournette- TBD (Rookie)

Factually, that's 1/5 first round picks for Caldwell that are busts so far.  You have to fairly give guys 3 seasons before declaring them a bust. 

Even if you want to declare Bortles a bust (which I think is naive) that would still only be 2/5 first round picks as a bust at this point.

Top 5 picks are supposed to be franchise level players. The only one on that list that routinely plays like it is Jalen. 

But to stay on topic I’m not disputing that Fournette is a generational talent. I’m arguing that he’s not one in the nfl. He doesn’t fit this team offensively as constructed. He’s not pulling his wait and you can’t use the injury excuse. He was injured in college and now injured in the nfl. The fact that the Jags play and win without him multiple games is a judge sign they don’t need him. They don’t get any rhythm with him playing. If that’s not a sign he was a bad pick I don’t know what is.

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Go Jags!

Your opinion is lacking facts.

Joeckel- 1st round bust-yes
Bortles- TBD
Fowler- TBD (in his 2nd playing season)
Ramsey- HOFer
Fournette- TBD (Rookie)

Factually, that's 1/5 first round picks for Caldwell that are busts so far.  You have to fairly give guys 3 seasons before declaring them a bust. 

Even if you want to declare Bortles a bust (which I think is naive) that would still only be 2/5 first round picks as a bust at this point.

Top 5 picks are supposed to be franchise level players. The only one on that list that routinely plays like it is Jalen. 

But to stay on topic I’m not disputing that Fournette is a generational talent. I’m arguing that he’s not one in the nfl. He doesn’t fit this team offensively as constructed. He’s not pulling his wait and you can’t use the injury excuse. He was injured in college and now injured in the nfl. The fact that the Jags play and win without him multiple games is a judge sign they don’t need him. They don’t get any rhythm with him playing.

Show me a team that in the last 5 years have picked all franchise caliber players in the 1st round?

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Fournette was a terrible pick due to his chronic ankle problems.

He'll probably never give the team more than a few good games a season until they let him walk in a few years. Considering the team was already loaded with talent it's going to be a long time until we get another top five pick and wasting this last one is going to set the team back compared to what it could have been had it taken someone that won't spend half of every season useless due to injury.

Arguing about where he was drafted is legit, especially when you can find guys like Kareem Hunt, Kamara, and many others like that in later rounds.

However, draft position aside, LF is a good player. You can see the big time difference in talent between him and the other RBs the Jags have. 

LF has power, speed, good moves, and initiates contact when needed. It's not his fault where he was drafted (just like the Fowler argument before). 

LF is definitely not the reason the Jags lose or Bortles sucks as the original poster is theorizing.

If there's ANY truth to that theory,, it's the coaching plan when LF is playing. 

As stated elsewhere too, the games LF didn't play and Bortles looked awesome were against TERRIBLE pass defenses (Bengals, Colts X2). Trying to connect Bortles' awesome play to LF not being in the game is disingenuous.

When he's healthy he's a frightening talent. Possibly the strongest talent at the position since Jim Brown. However he has major health concerns and in a critical area for a running back.

If he didn't have the major health concerns I'd say he'd be one of the few running backs to be worthy of a top selection overall. However since he's not going to be effective at the workload you need from a top running back, he just wasn't a good pick at four. With his injury concerns he'd have been fine on the middle of the first where premium players are much more scarce, but not in the top five.

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The run blocking has been awful lately.

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Coughlin when asked if winning will be a focus: "What the hell else is there? This is nice and dandy, but winning is what all this is about."

Does Fournette play defense?

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zuttah is available and I just read that we might move linder back to guard and either start bowanko at center, or sign zuttah... I've been wondering why we ever moved Linder from guard in the first place.

Go get zuttah he was a pro bowler last year... this would make me feel much better

Does Fournette play defense?

Shhhh, this defense has already been crowned the best ever.

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Taking it to the top of the Modis building.  

I’m not too worried about Fournette...yet. He really hasn’t had a great amount of down time to properly get his ankle fixed like he will come this offseason. Between the rookie combine and all of the private workouts leading up to the draft, many rookies don’t get enough time to properly rest their bodies for the grind of their first NFL season. Now if he’s still injury prone 2-3 seasons down the road and can’t play effectively, then yeah he wasn’t worth the pick.

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Jaguars Fundamentalist

Does Fournette play defense?

I've been away for a few days... but this was my first thought.

Our D got worked. Credit it to their coaching staff, or Jimmy G... but the D got handled for most of the game and their frustration poured out over it.
And it just goes to show, when the pressure is on and we're down and the D isn't making plays, Blake shows up, not Robby.

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Does Fournette play defense?

I've been away for a few days... but this was my first thought.

Our D got worked. Credit it to their coaching staff, or Jimmy G... but the D got handled for most of the game and their frustration poured out over it.
And it just goes to show, when the pressure is on and we're down and the D isn't making plays, Blake shows up, not Robby.

I think what’s getting lost is that I started this thread after the cardinals loss and I put a large amount of blame on Fournette for not being the RB we thought we were getting in that game. He was shutdown by that cardinals defense. If he played decent it would’ve been just enough to get the win. 

I didn’t want to start a new thread with a similar subject so here we are. But my gripe about last weeks game was that Fournette contributes to the loss because he’s very ineffective. The defense got worked and then self imploded in the second half. I think that group will be fine. Too many leaders and real talent on that side of the ball not to. 

But Fournette is weak. Grant, TJ and ivory have all taken turns looking better.

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Go Jags!

I've been away for a few days... but this was my first thought.

Our D got worked. Credit it to their coaching staff, or Jimmy G... but the D got handled for most of the game and their frustration poured out over it.
And it just goes to show, when the pressure is on and we're down and the D isn't making plays, Blake shows up, not Robby.

I think what’s getting lost is that I started this thread after the cardinals loss and I put a large amount of blame on Fournette for not being the RB we thought we were getting in that game. He was shutdown by that cardinals defense. If he played decent it would’ve been just enough to get the win. 

I didn’t want to start a new thread with a similar subject so here we are. But my gripe about last weeks game was that Fournette contributes to the loss because he’s very ineffective. The defense got worked and then self imploded in the second half. I think that group will be fine. Too many leaders and real talent on that side of the ball not to. 

But Fournette is weak. Grant, TJ and ivory have all taken turns looking better.

I kinda get what you're saying...
But Fournette is the better back of all them and it isn't close.

Now whether we play different and call plays different when he's in the line up is something to discuss and it becomes a question of coaching and playcalling.
If he's dinged up and not fully healthy, I wish they'd just let him heal and then put him back in. Seems like he hasn't been 100% since way early in the season.

Ivory especially has been nothing special this season. 1 good game against Cincy and 1 good run VS Seattle really.
In all of our losses the D hasn't played up to snuff or the QB/WR combos were off and STs didn't play well.
I fail to see any game where Fournette has been the problem. Even when we got sluggish running the ball, it was more about the health of the OL, imo.

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I think what’s getting lost is that I started this thread after the cardinals loss and I put a large amount of blame on Fournette for not being the RB we thought we were getting in that game. He was shutdown by that cardinals defense. If he played decent it would’ve been just enough to get the win. 

I didn’t want to start a new thread with a similar subject so here we are. But my gripe about last weeks game was that Fournette contributes to the loss because he’s very ineffective. The defense got worked and then self imploded in the second half. I think that group will be fine. Too many leaders and real talent on that side of the ball not to. 

But Fournette is weak. Grant, TJ and ivory have all taken turns looking better.

I kinda get what you're saying...
But Fournette is the better back of all them and it isn't close.

Now whether we play different and call plays different when he's in the line up is something to discuss and it becomes a question of coaching and playcalling.
If he's dinged up and not fully healthy, I wish they'd just let him heal and then put him back in. Seems like he hasn't been 100% since way early in the season.

Ivory especially has been nothing special this season. 1 good game against Cincy and 1 good run VS Seattle really.
In all of our losses the D hasn't played up to snuff or the QB/WR combos were off and STs didn't play well.
I fail to see any game where Fournette has been the problem. Even when we got sluggish running the ball, it was more about the health of the OL, imo.

There is no doubt theres room for improvement offensively. However when Fournette plays he really doesn’t do much of anything. We can make excuses or blame it on coaching but it’s hard for me to go there. Because at the beginning of the season we as a fan base thought the oline would be one of the worst in the league. Now we’re watxhing a unit way over achieve. The 4th pick over all has a responsibility to make some of those runs into something. But he’s just running right into tackles for no gain. The problem I have with him is that I do not think he has that ability. The Jags will most certainly need to draft road grading linemen for Fournette to be successful.

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Go Jags!