Quote:They also had an expanded salary cap which they abused and ultimately paid the price for when that run finally came to an end in 1999/2000. 

Not so much an "expanded" salary cap, per se. 

 

Starting from scratch, they naturally had more cap room than anyone else to sign free agents.  With the new stadium, abundance of club seats, etc., the Jaguars were amongst the league leaders in income at one point, so that helped too.

 

But I still maintain it wasn't the free agency excess that was the true cause of the Jaguars collapse, but draft day failures from 1995-1999 that led to the collapse of the team at that point.

 

The team missed on high round draft picks like 1995 2nd rounders RT Brian DeMarco  and LB Bryan Schwartz, and 3rd rounder S Chris Hudson.

 

The team missed on 1997 2nd round pick S Mike Logan, 3rd round pick LB James Hamilton.

 

All of these guys should have been hitting their primes in 1999-2000 and been around to provide veteran leadership in the early 2000s.

 

These misses led directly to free agency signings of T Leon Searcy, LB Lonnie Marts, Hardy Nickerson and Eddie Robinson, Bryce Paup and Carnell Lake.

 

Not only did they overpay to fill the holes created by those misses, but they created an older team on top of that.  Having to sign older players for veteran leadership increased the chances for FA misses.

 

This pattern of draft misses followed by FA signings continued through the Shack and Jack era (missed on Reggie Williams and Matt Jones to sign WR Jerry Porter), through the Gene Smith era (Missed on DEs Derrick Harvey and Quentin Groves to sign DE Aaron Kampman).  Draft misses have dictated the FA approach of Caldwell to a degree.

 

The moral of the story:  Hit on the draft picks, save in free agency and reduce the risk of a FA bust.

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