Quote:I see the changes being made and the progress with Blakes arm, and want to think we're winning 10 games this year. However, I've taken a close look at the league after the draft to come up with my power ranking currently posted in the NFL at Large forum. The general opinion of my ranking is that at #22 I have the Jaguars too high. There's one poster in that thread insisting we should be no higher than #25.


 

I like #22 because as long as I can justify it to myself, I'm good with it, but I can't rightly justify a higher ranking even to myself, and it took the likes of Fournette and Westbrook to get me that high up. Well, #22 is the ranking of maybe a 6-10 team, and I can certainly see this being the outcome. My prediction for the Jaguars all along this offseason has been 8-8 plus or minus two games, so whether they finish 6-10 or 10-6, I'm good there.

 

I think 10 games is within reach if Marrone can solve some problems, namely getting Bortles to be at least at competent game manager level, or not killing the team with turnovers on bad decisions, but I think Bortles decision making wasn't as bad as the numbers last year might look, so I think that part is easily achievable.

 

I think the harder part will be the defense actually being good, and I don't mean have good yardage allowed totals at the end of the season, but fold in every critical situation they face. If they can actually stop a few teams late in the fourth quarter of a game that will be a big improvement over last year, where the Bears were the only team they managed to close out on defense. The other two wins came because the offense got out ahead and didn't let up.

 

Six wins should be seen as a floor if a lot of things outside of the team's control go wrong, like critical injuries to Fournette or Bortles. If Fournette and Bortles play the whole season and perform like we think they're capable of then a .500 season should be easy, and while ESPN wouldn't have seen it coming much like they didn't see the titans 9-7 season coming last year, it's nothing that should be unexpected by fans.

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