The thing that Shack missed out on was his misreading of Byron Leftwich, and then trying to feed the guy top notch weapons. I really felt like Shack fell in love with Leftwich and that led him into thinking that Byron could become the big time leader for the team. Once Shack had him, he needed to get him weapons and the rest is another chapter in Sad Jacksonville Wide Receiver drafting.

 

I am glad though that he has strung together a nice career. I always liked Shack, even if I didn't always agree with his moves.

 

I think one of the biggest mistakes the Jaguars made in that era was pairing Offensive Coordinator Bill Musgrave with Byron Leftwich.   While I agree totally that the Jaguars missed on too many WR's,   the pairing of Musgrave and Leftwich contributed significantly to the Jaguars passing game not being effective enough.  

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Gene Smith gets a worse rap than he deserves. His capabilities were maybe overhyped, but he was not bad as a talent evaluator. He obviously didn't have a solid plan of how to build a winning football team that could withstand the injuries that he would face. He got too caught up in trying to build a team that was tough in the trenches and didn't understand what it takes to win in the "new" NFL until it was too late. Ultimately, he missed on quarterback which is the fatal blow, but you gotta pick a guy at some point. And you only got like 3 years.


(Plus, he won the same amount of games in his first season as Caldwell won his first two.)


*ducks*

Gene Smith has quite possibly put up the most embarrassing GM show in recent history. How many picks are still on the team/ in the league?


You say he was a good talent evaluator, where is the proof? Caldwell has had to rebuild EVERYTHING, and has already looked 100% better than Gene Smith ever was.


Gene Smith is a clown. I don't think ONE of his draft picks has ever panned out, with picks in the top 10 (ATLEAST) in each year. That's some great talent evaluation right there.


Oh yea, and he picked an average punter in the 3rd round.

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The Jaguars 2nd Round selections when Shack was a key part of the organization were very impressive.    Some of those picks such as Rashean Mathis and MJD are good examples of what you expressed when looking at the positive side of the coin.

 

 One thing I've wondered about is how much better off the Jaguars would have been if there was someone on the football side of the operation at the top of the chain of command of the organization instead of having no clear cut personnel decision maker when Shack and JDR were in the organization.

During Harris' tenure as a Jaguar, very few knew that he selected the first rounders (Matt Jones, Byron Leftwhich, etc.) while the scouting staff led by Gene Smith selected the remainder of the rounds. Under Harris, our first rounders were a bust and the remainder of the draft picks shined like MJD etc. This is the reasoning that Harris was fired and Gene hired as the first GM of our Jaguars...


Dropping a little knowledge on my fellow Jaguar fans I am...


NH3...

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"AZANE"

During Harris' tenure as a Jaguar, very few knew that he selected the first rounders (Matt Jones, Byron Leftwhich, etc.) while the scouting staff led by Gene Smith selected the remainder of the rounds. Under Harris, our first rounders were a bust and the remainder of the draft picks shined like MJD etc. This is the reasoning that Harris was fired and Gene hired as the first GM of our Jaguars...


Dropping a little knowledge on my fellow Jaguar fans I am...


NH3...

 

 

  I recall this being mentioned on the MB and elsewhere back in the Shack and Jack days.   I offen wondered if this was accurate information.  ( By no means is this a criticism of you. )  That was reinforced on Thursday Night when I heard the NFL Access piece on Shack that mentioned his tremendous influence on the MJD 2nd round selection.  

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Gene Smith gets a worse rap than he deserves.  His capabilities were maybe overhyped, but he was not bad as a talent evaluator.  He obviously didn't have a solid plan of how to build a winning football team that could withstand the injuries that he would face.    He got too caught up in trying to build a team that was tough in the trenches and didn't understand what it takes to win in the "new" NFL until it was too late.  Ultimately, he missed on quarterback which is the fatal blow, but you gotta pick a guy at some point.   And you only got like 3 years.  

 

(Plus, he won the same amount of games in his first season as Caldwell won his first two.) 

 

*ducks*

Gene Smith was handicapped by Wayne Weaver. He was instructed to select only safe players that wouldn't discredit the team by getting in trouble after the Harris débâcle. Alualu was one of his instructed safe picks. Mr. Weaver also instructed him to Not Spend on players because the team was secretly up for sale. For these reasons alone, Gene was given that contract extension by Mr. Weaver that was nullified by Mr. Khan. He was doomed by ownership...


NH3...

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"AZANE"

It seemed to me that Harris was a needs drafter in the first round, then went best available after that. If true, perhaps that's a perspective in the need/best available drafting debate.

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During Harris' tenure as a Jaguar, very few knew that he selected the first rounders (Matt Jones, Byron Leftwhich, etc.) while the scouting staff led by Gene Smith selected the remainder of the rounds. Under Harris, our first rounders were a bust and the remainder of the draft picks shined like MJD etc. This is the reasoning that Harris was fired and Gene hired as the first GM of our Jaguars...


Dropping a little knowledge on my fellow Jaguar fans I am...


NH3...

You're dropping something else.

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His name still starles me.

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Shack was your arg GM, not terrible like some people try to act like he was, Gene Smith was terrible the team was worst every year under him.

 

Shack we got better every year for the first 4 years and made the playoffs twice and won a playoff game, then we fell off 

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<B><FONT color=cyan>Jags this is your year</FONT></B>