Sundays game is the biggest game in the history of Everbank Field. While our epic comeback over the Bears was one of the greatest games I've ever seen, we just cannot rest on our laurels. 

 

The storylines leading into this game are just incredible..consider: 

 

1)  We win and all is well, right in the thick of things in the AFC South, the most competitive and exciting division in football. Lose and it's a catastrophe. Mr. Khan will have to hit the reset button and start over again. A loss at this stage will call for an immediate firing of  Gus Bradley and his under achieving staff and predictably, Mr. Khan will will have to go hire Bill Callahan away from the Redskins. A loss means we have to rebuild the rebuilding project. Rebuilding projects are hard enough, but rebuilding a rebuilding project - nearly impossible. This loss could set us back to the 1980's, when we didn't even have a team. I really hope we can win to avoid this.  

 

2) The Del Rio factor....he wanted to stay, but most of Jags nation wanted him gone. I did not. A loss and the Jags have egg on their face. The pundits will laugh at what  good thing we (you guys) ruined. We will be mocked and insulted even more than normal, and you know what, Jags Fans (me being the exception) will have to accept all of this.  A win on the other hand and we can all proudly say that we defeated the winningest coach in Jags history, and although we would have been much better off keeping him this is a heck of a season saving consolation prize.   Win or lose, I hope that #jagsnation treats Del Rio like royalty. I  think a proper salute would be to have JDR run out on the field ahead of both teams and stand in the middle of the field. Then as a show of respect, Casey Bradley could slowly walk to midfield and in front of everyone, present Coach Del Rio with a Heirloom Grandmaster Wooden Chess Set, humbly acknowledging through this act of symbolism that Del Rio will be "playing Chess" throughout the game while "he, Casey Bradley is playing checkers." This gesture would be replayed on ESPN and all of the national news and this act of sportsmanship and humility  would create incredible publicity that would go a long way.

 

3) A couple of other story line that people haven't thought of.....while Del Rio's accomplishments as a head coach are well noted and documented, and Casey's really never accomplished much at all as a head coach, where Casey Bradley has one upped Del Rio is that JDR never finished runner up for the North Dakota State Head Job. Also, in comparing bio's on wikipedia, it should be noted that Casey Bradley was the head coach at Fort Lewis college for four months back from December 1995 - March 1996. I was a little worried about Casey's experience going into this game being a disadvantage but after discovering that he also has had two head coaching gigs, this certainly calmed my nerves. For as good as JDR has been, he has never been the coach at Fort Lewis - could this be a factor if the game is tight towards the end?

 

I'm not sure why teams that travel from the west coast to the east coast have such a competitive advantage when they play the 12:00 game. Perhaps it's because they are used to getting up earlier on the west coast and are therefore more mentally fresh for a game at this time on the east coast. I hope that we do not use this as an excuse and come out ready to play. 3-3 sounds a whole lot better than 2-4, and don't forget that we will take a 27 day non losing streak into this tussle. I can't wait! 

 

Good luck JDR - may the best team win but respectfully, may the highly  superior coach lose. 

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