https://blackandteal.com/posts/3-reasons...8rVHY0lhho

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

Very exciting to have a player with Ridley's potential here in Jacksonville. Especially considering he is now being paired with Trevor Lawrence & Dougie P.

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Very exciting to have a player with Ridley's potential here in Jacksonville.  Especially considering he is now being paired with Trevor Lawrence & Dougie P.

It's rare that a player can sit out for a year or more and return without showing signs of rust ir reduction in skills, which is why I am trying to temper my expectations.

But if somehow he beats the odds and returns every bit the player he was, the Jaguars should be a better and more explosive offense, and Jaguars fans will be stoked. 

I know I will be!

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

Very exciting to have a player with Ridley's potential here in Jacksonville.  Especially considering he is now being paired with Trevor Lawrence & Dougie P.

It's rare that a player can sit out for a year or more and return without showing signs of rust ir reduction in skills, which is why I am trying to temper my expectations.

But if somehow he beats the odds and returns every bit the player he was, the Jaguars should be a better and more explosive offense, and Jaguars fans will be stoked. 

I know I will be!

The way Ridley talks and the way he is moving right now.. It's hard not to be excited and optimistic. Time will tell but it's all trending in a positive direction at the moment.

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Very exciting to have a player with Ridley's potential here in Jacksonville.  Especially considering he is now being paired with Trevor Lawrence & Dougie P.

It's rare that a player can sit out for a year or more and return without showing signs of rust ir reduction in skills, which is why I am trying to temper my expectations.

But if somehow he beats the odds and returns every bit the player he was, the Jaguars should be a better and more explosive offense, and Jaguars fans will be stoked. 

I know I will be!

I’m right there with you on expectations with Ridley. Jimmy Smith is the only WR I know that missed a season or more and came back to be ultra productive.

I think Kirk is still the Jaguars #1 WR right now but it’s nice to know that we have 3 WRs that could step up in any game. And then we have guys like Washington and Tim Jones that makes the unit even deeper, and then you throw Agnew into the mix and we could have one of the deepest WR units across the league.  

I also remember the Andre Rison experiment. He also played for the Falcons for 5 seasons before playing with the Browns in 1995. In 1996 I was so fired up when I found out the Jaguars just signed Rison the day before training camp. At that point Rison was a 4-time Pro Bowler with an All Pro selection in 1990. I was in a walking cast due to a broken ankle, and I begged my mother to take me to the “open practice” so I could get my cast signed by Andre, along with a football card I had of him from his Falcons days. There were about 200 fans along the railing that lead from the locker room of the stadium out to the practice fields. I remember Andre walked out and the fans started cheering for him. He put his helmet on and started bouncing as if he was fired up and then he started punching the air. Everyone around me was holding out their stuff to get autographed so I reached as far as I could with his football card across the rail and yelled out his name and then suddenly someone snatched my football card away from me….it was Andre that took it. He asked some lady for her sharpie marker and he signed it and handed it back to me before I could ask him to sign my cast, he gave the marker back to the lady and ran onto the practice field. It was the only thing he signed that day. After practice was over I tried for another autograph from him, but he ran inside the locker room.  

He wrote AR and then circled it. As a 14 year old kid, I was a huge fan of his after that. 

Rison joined the Jaguars in 1996 with an accomplished resume and he was still in his prime at 29 years of age. At the end of the 1995 season he already had 522 receptions for 7,154 yards and 63 TDs. At the time I thought he would take us to the Super Bowl and help our team be the best team in the NFL. 

Rison ended up starting just 9 games for Jacksonville before they shipped him off to Green Bay. I later found out that him and Brunell got into arguments on the field because he was running wrong routes and not knowing the playbook. He also showed up late to team meetings and was drunk in a couple of meetings. He was also blamed for half of the interceptions that Brunell threw because he was in the wrong spot on the field. 

He ended his Jaguars tenure with 34 receptions 458 yards and 2 TD. In week 11 at Pittsburgh, Rison had 2 catches for 16 yards and 0 TD…him and Brunell had words after an intercepted pass on 3rd down. At that point Coughlin seen enough. Coughlin told the media that he would be replaced by Jimmy Smith to which Rison replied “I ain’t no backup.” He was released immediately. He was signed to a contract in Green Bay the following week. 

This was all after just 1 season earlier he was signed to a 5 year 17 million dollar deal by the Browns. The Browns released him after the first season. 

Once Jimmy Smith replaced Andre Rison in the starting lineup, the Jaguars went to win their final 5 games of the season and made the playoffs, winning against the Bills and the Broncos. Smith scored touchdowns in both games, with the famous “fade to glory” against Denver. Smith had three 100 yard games in those final 5 regular season games. 

I’m not saying Calvin Ridley will turn out the same way, but I am tempering my expectations as training camp draws closer. Lawrence doesn’t owe him any extra attention on the field. It will be Ridley’s job to earn targets and go from there.

So far it looks like Calvin is doing everything he needs to be doing.

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Can a suspended player qualify for comeback player OTY?

Interesting if so.

Anyway - I don't disagree with the articles points, but I have a different opinion on the main reasons Ridley will have a big year if he's healthy for 17 + games.

1. Doug Pederson
This HC and his staff have already demonstrated an elite ability to get the most out of their weaponry.
Ridley gives them a spoil of riches with which to work.

2. Supporting offensive cast:
You may be inclined to think Ridley will draw the best Cb and lots of double coverage - but that may prove to be a very difficult decision for a number of opposing defensive coordinators if Trevor is spreading the ball effectively to Kirk, Jones, Engram and ETN like we anticipate. The number of big play makers to defend will ultimately free up Ridley more often than he'd be on lesser offensive rosters.

3. Calvin Ridley
Simple.
The guy is a rare talent athletically.
Very few receivers come along with such a large dose of both speed and quickness. His moments in and out of breaks are intensely sudden and his acceleration is elite.

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Can a suspended player qualify for comeback player OTY?

Interesting if so.

Anyway - I don't disagree with the articles points, but I have a different opinion on the main reasons Ridley will have a big year if he's healthy for 17 + games.

1. Doug Pederson
This HC and his staff have already demonstrated an elite ability to get the most out of their weaponry.
Ridley gives them a spoil of riches with which to work.

2. Supporting offensive cast:
You may be inclined to think Ridley will draw the best Cb and lots of double coverage - but that may prove to be a very difficult decision for a number of opposing defensive coordinators if Trevor is spreading the ball effectively to Kirk, Jones, Engram and ETN like we anticipate. The number of big play makers to defend will ultimately free up Ridley more often than he'd be on lesser offensive rosters.

3. Calvin Ridley
Simple.
The guy is a rare talent athletically.
Very few receivers come along with such a large dose of both speed and quickness. His moments in and out of breaks are intensely sudden and his acceleration is elite.

I was kinda curious so I looked at past winners to see if any names jumped out at me.  The closest player that meets this criteria (at least in the past ~25-30 years where I'd have some knowledge of their careers) was Vick in 2010.  Though he returned to the NFL with the Eagles in '09, he didn't play that season before starting most of 2010 and winning the award.  It's really an award without any sort of defined criteria, so it's possible he could.

I kind of think it's a moot point though, as Damar Hamlin will almost certainly win it if he returns to the field at all, similar to Alex Smith a couple years back.

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