Quote:Brunell was a franchise guy at that point, but he still wasn't elite. He just played out of his mind for two games in the '96 playoffs.

 

His TD numbers bear it out, too. He never threw for more than 20 TDs in his career, a truly piddling amount on a team with the level of talent that the Jaguars had. I know some people will think it was just because it was the times, but guys like Favre and Young were routinely hitting the mid 30's for TDs back then. A career high of 20 says it all about Brunell.

 

Part of that was Tom Coughlin back in those days. Inside the 20 Tom (then) seemed to prefer to run to score a lot. It was rare that Brunell would get many decent TD pass opportunities inside the 20, or especially inside the 10. Coughlin was very aggressive in passing between the 20's however. 

 

I think Brunell would have thrown more TD passes though, had the knee injury never occured, because he would have bought more time with his feet on certain plays, opening up a few more big play opportunities. Brunell as it was, had like 4500 yards passing in his first full season as a starter. Then the injury happened and it took pretty much half of his game away from him. 

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