Quote:I get where you're coming from with the 'close game' idea, but let me suggest another possibility; maybe some (not all) of those teams just kept it close because they didn't want to go out and 'blow out' an underdog team like the Jaguars because it could come back to haunt them in the near future. Teams tend to remember when an opponent really runs up a score against them needlessly. There is such a thing as 'pay back', and while the Jags weren't really viewed as possible contenders last season (or this season either really...) most pro's recognize that if the Jag's keep building up the roster with quality players that sooner or later, they will become contenders. If you are a hopeful contender yourself you don't want to be going out and giving your competition grounds for having a grudge. You want to win, of course, but you don't want to humiliate that other team. I think that the good teams we played kept it close 'by design'. The steelers, dolphins, ravens, bengals... could have run the score up but didn't. That's good gamesmanship.

 

... then again, maybe they just weren't as good as I was led to give them credit for, or perhaps our defense was good enough to not allow run-a-way scoring in those games; they allowed it in others, just not in these.