Let’s get this party started. We continue the never too early season preview series with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Overview:
Last year’s AFC South title was won without any real competition, and the Colts are the favorite in the AFC NASCAR division this year. Houston is their biggest threat; they won it in ’11 and ’12 and they’ll rebound from last year’s disaster faster than you think. Tennessee has been running on a treadmill as a franchise for awhile, and the Jacksonville Jaguars are well, the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Hey, they have a larger TV at their stadium than the Texans or the Cowboys! Yippe freaking do man. That’s like going to a strip club, but watching the movie “Striptease” with Demi Moore on a television instead once you get inside.
And they have poolside cabanas at the Jaguars stadium!! Who cares? This isn’t baseball, where you need bread and circuses to distract you from a boring, unwatchable game. This is NFL football! The best sport there is!
Of course, there is the quarterback position. Blake Bortles was the most pro ready in this class. It’s a very weak class, but JAX needed to badly fix the Blaine Gabbert mistake. They went in the right direction. Now Bortles will finally become more famous than his girlfriend, Lindsey Duke. Who really shouldn’t be famous at all.
In fact she should be totally obscure….if there were any justice in the world. Chad Henne will be the starter until the time is right.
Offense:
Ok they have a real signal caller, maybe by 2016, they’ll start completing for the AFC NASCAR division crown again. The Jaguars no longer have their MoJo working. Maurice Jones-Drew is gone. He’s past his prime anyway. But now the offense is based around Toby Gerhart? Yuck. The Jags re-did their whole offense, and reshaped their OL. Makes sense given that they were 31st in total offense and in rushing. G Zane Beadles is the big offensive acquisition who will make an impact right way.
Am I seriously spending time talking about a Jacksonville Jaguars Offensive Guard? Is that what my life has now come to? No, seriously the regime of GM Dave caldwell and Coach Gus Bradley got off to a terribly rocky start, as the Jags began 0-8, and then went 4-4 down the stretch. There’s a learning curve here. There still will be a curve when we have this discussion again in 2015.
This video below is FOX Sports’ preview of the upcoming season:
Defense:
At least they were balanced: 25th against the pass, 29th against the run. 28th in points allowed, 27th overall. Well, you get the idea. No team has more Seahawks castoffs than the Jacksonville Jaguars and no team tries so hard to be the new Seahawks. It’s a copycat league, and it will eventually work out for them. But not this year. The unit overall has a serious lack of talent. If the injury bug bites, look out! Depth is quite shallow.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports and Yahoo! He’s been a guest on news talk shows all across the world. He’s also a special contributor to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Banks has been featured in numerous media outlets including NFL.com, Forbes, Bleacher Report, Deadspin, ESPN, NBC, CBS, the History Channel and more. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)