I remember that last season I had predicted that we would do no better than 5-6 wins... and it turned out that I was being overly generous with that prediction. Vegas has already predicted that we're no better than a 5-6 team this season. Given the upgrade at the HC position (we hope) and the talent acquisitions through the draft and f/a, one can only hope that we'll have 'at least' 5-6 wins this season. 

I'm not overly optimistic that having an upgrade at running back (we hope) will effect that much positive change in our season record. As I recall, we once (in the not that distant past) had a situation where we had a quarterback who was, shall we say, less than 'reliable'. However, we had a great running back and had an excellent running game... and finished the season near the bottom.

Regardless of how good our newest running back is (and allow me to point out that we don't actually know yet how effective he is going to be in the NFL) that without the threat of an effective passing game the Jags are too easy to out score. If we can't effectively and reliably pass the ball and are forced (in order to prevent turnovers) to lean heavily on a running game, we will lose to any team that has a passing game since they can put points on the scoreboard faster that we can. All our opponents have to do is 'stack the box' and dare us to pass. Unless there has been dramatic improvement in our passing game, we will defeat ourselves via turnovers, and low scoring production.

So if this line of logic is reasonable, then the odus of responsibility for how this season will go falls largely on our passing game. I view our emphasis on the running game as simply trying to compensate for the poor/unreliable performance of our passing game. You'll notice that I'm not specifically pointing out Blake Bortles when I talk about the passing game. That's because (while he is the single biggest factor) he is only one part of it; the receivers and the line have to do their jobs also or nothing will work.

I think this is the reason why Vegas has us at no better than 5.5 wins, and that's why I'm not holding my breath hoping for much better than that either. We didn't upgrade the single most key player on the offense...yet.

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