Quote:Fall guy is Gene Smith.  He put this roster at expansion level.  The four years of him, and the years earlier of Shack Harris have contributed to making this a very bad team.  We can't expect Caldwell to fix this leak with duct tape, because it's not a small hole in a bucket.  It's the grand canyon we're trying to patch.

Exactly!

It took years of really bad drafting and wasting money on low performing f/a's to get us in this mess. One thing I would add to your 'fall guy' assessment however; former owner Wayne Weaver. Yes, Wayne Weaver. He brought NFL football to Jacksonville and for that we are grateful. However, he also allowed an obviously under performing GM (Gene Smith) to stay in that position long enough to put this franchise in a situation that will literally require years to fix! Once the franchise was 'on the bricks' he then sold it to someone else..... Thanks Wayne...

 

It should also be pointed out that as Jags fans we were (in a certain respect) 'spoiled' by having contenders right off the bat when the franchise was still almost brand new. That was only possible due to the NFL allowing some concessions which allowed us to acquire top notch players very quickly instead of enduring years of the slow building process through the draft.

 

But thanks to the excessively long leash that Wayne gave Gene Smith, this franchise has been brought back to what almost amounts to a traditional expansion level team.... now we have to endure the years of what amounts to 'building' a winning franchise from scratch.

 

Don't get me wrong; I don't find Dave Caldwell faultless. I (along with what I suspect is a rather large portion of the fan base) am not impressed with Toby Gerhart. Dave had to have known that our offensive line would be super weak (especially given the retirement of Meester) yet didn't adequately address the issue, instead picking up more receivers. What is more important, a good offensive line or good receivers? answer: the line. always, the line. Were there good lines men to be had in the last couple of drafts? Yup. The result of a weak line is that (among other things) it renders a running back like Toby almost worthless. A 'power back' he is touted... yet, this 'power back' needs good blockers or he can't get more than a yard or two on average. 'Power back'? Not...

 

Still... Dave brought in Bortles, who has the look of a franchise quarterback that we haven't seen since Mark Brunell; we can only  hope. Brunell had a host of quality players around him like Tony Bosselli, Jimmy Smith, Keenan McCardell, and Fred Taylor. What does Bortles have? A pretty girlfriend.

 

The point is... this situation didn't happen over night and it isn't going to get fixed in a couple of years. All we can do is hope the coaches won't tolerate sub-par performances (Bradfield and Guy were told to hit the bricks...). At some point, it has to be made clear to the players that the NFL is not a 'free ride'. I'm glad that Dave and Gus are doing this as we the fans deserve a better product that what we've 'endured' for over seven years now. If Khan can't (or won't) put people on the field... players and coaches... who get the job done, then he is a crummy owner, regardless of how much money he has. Maybe he really does want to move the franchise to London...but for now, it's 'be patient'. That's getting to be a mighty old line....

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