Quote:I've never been "pro Gus" nor have I been anti Gus...I have sat here for the last 3 seasons with an open mind, looking at the big picture rather than the record. One thing I have noticed is that most posters here are looking for any and everything negative...


I also held my expectations down from the lofty 8-8 or higher most posters insisted must be reached...I felt 6-10 would be a good benchmark for this year...


I watched the first and second season where through most of it, it looked like the players had never even stepped foot on a football field in their lives...Receivers running wrong routes, receivers dropping more passes than they caught, an OL that couldn't protect the QB against an sophomore high school team and a defense (second season) that looked like it had some promise, while the offense couldn't find their [BAD WORD REMOVED] with both hands, and ST was worse...I saw the biggest points differential in losses can I can remember ever seeing and just ugly play everywhere...


This season I saw on offense who started to get their [BAD WORD REMOVED] together...An offense who finally started getting on the same page, receivers who caught passes for huge gains, I saw touchdowns scored even from the redzone...I saw an offense who nfl analysts started calling "explosive"..I saw nfl players and nfl analysts praising Gus for the improvement on offense...I saw franchise records fall, I saw a running game start to manifest...I saw Blake Bortles name being thrown around on different networks and also our receivers got media attention...I saw the Jags being talked about in a positive manner for the first time in years...From year one of Caldwell and Gus, to this season is nearly night and day...Games lost for the most part were close and a few of them could have been wins if not for stupid mistakes by the players


I also saw the defense regress, questionable play calling, misuse of timeouts, coaching blunders but in the end, they ended up about where I expected...


No, I don't consider losing to be acceptable, but I also have never seen or even heard of a roster being torn down as far as Caldwell did, and he even admitted he may have gutted it a little too far and filled the first year with UDFA and rookies and a few FA signings...I did not expect much year one, year two, I expected to start seeing flashes of what we want towards the end of the year, year 3 I expected to play like a team that's been together for awhile, and string some wins out and lose some heartbreakers...


When it's all said and done, I guess I look at things different than most here...The first two years I was expecting minimal wins, this year I expected to see more...I have seen improvement from year one to year two, year two to year three, and I expect to see even more next year...I don't think 10 wins should be the benchmark for next season, that's hard for teams to do anyway, but I would expect 8-9 wins...