(11-06-2017, 05:42 PM)StroudCrowd1 Wrote:

(11-06-2017, 05:40 PM)imtheblkranger Wrote: I've always been pro Dave.

On the Gus hire, he was supposed to be a great hire. People here, and nationally, loved Guys as a HC candidate. I do fault Dave for not moving on sooner, but oh well, we got LF and Cam out of it.

The problem wasn't the hire. It was the delayed firing. Gus was given too much time when it was clear to everybody you had seen his best.

I agree that the delayed firing was the issue, but honestly, if you kept him after the 3rd year (2015), when he really seemed to finally moving the team forward a little, you might as well roll through the 4th. What would we have gained by cutting him earlier last year? A couple wins, no Fournette? Not sure there was much gain to be had. 

Everyone wanted Gus to succeed, and he definitely stunk it up, but going into last year (i.e. before the season started) Gus was loooking like he might have the team going in the right direction. Our QB had just thrown for the most TD's and Yards ever for a Jags, ARob had emerged as a dominate receiver, the talent on defense was starting to show. 

Other than only getting 5 wins the previous season, there was real reason to believe the team was improving. The reason we fired Gus is because we finally had some expectations and he failed to deliver spectacularly. But if he hadn't had ANY improvement the season before then he would have been gone already. 

Thats all the defending of Caldwell I can do on this. Yeah in hindsight, we kept Gus too long, but I get why we did. He didn't have the worse record for any coach after three seasons. It took him 4 to do that, and our 'rebuild' was much harder than other teams had to do from top to bottom.

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