I find myself surprisingly disappointed by the recent failures of one Tim Tebow at the Senior Bowl practices. Anyone who knows me is probably shocked to see me say such a thing, but it’s true. Maybe I’m just elitist, but I enjoy the feeling I get when the uninformed masses all but anoint the former UF QB as Jacksonville’s first-round pick.
The truth, of course, is that it is becoming increasingly unlikely that any team will draft him in the first round, much less a team choosing in the first 11 picks. Yet, a national fascination persists, and with it comes the consistent mention of the Jaguars as a potential home.
So, the following are my reasons the Jaguars will not draft Tim Tebow (as a QB/in an early round)
1. Best Available Player – It is the first thing anyone needs to know about Gene Smith’s drafting philosophy. Talent (and to some extent character) trumps all. No matter how many avid Gator fans would flock to Jacksonville, Gene would not compromise his core philosophy to placate a fan base. It would be hard to convince me that Tebow will be the best available player on the board until sometime on the third day of the draft. At this point, I see him as a poor man’s Zach Miller. What does that say?
2. Newton’s Law – For every Gator fan/Evangelical Christian that hops on the bandwagon, you risk losing support of the serious Jaguars fan (many Gators included) who does not endorse sacrificing winning for a quick ticket fix. Also, any potential newcomers, if they come for Tebow, would surely only stay on for the length of his stay, which, if he truly is an average player, could be a short one.
3. Haven’t we seen this before? – It seems to me that Fred Taylor, Reggie Nelson, Bobby McCray, and Derrick Harvey all played for Florida, and other than Fred, none of them can be labeled as franchise saviors. Fred, of course, is a borderline Hall-of-Famer, and even he couldn’t single-handedly sell tickets. Half of his career was clouded by detractors who questioned his durability, deserved or not. McCray had 10 sacks in a season (2006), and he was relegated to local obscurity. Can a backup QB make more of a dent?
4. Where’s the upside? – If one is able to look beyond the requisite physical tools (which are highly in doubt), is he a student of the game? Does his record show great improvement? I can see the positive of a respectful, driven young man, but I don’t see any growth. If anything, I see regression in his senior year. His decision making showed flaws when the easy plays (Harvin- or Murphy-related) dried up. I suppose the short-yardage running game would still be effective on the pro level, but is it sustainable? He already has a well-documented concussion history.
5. Where does he fit on this roster? – By this roster, I mean one that went 7-9 in 2009. Would he slide in ahead of McCown? Probably not. Below him? Not if we keep only two on roster. Fullback? Maybe, but Greg Jones is a borderline Pro-Bowler, and Montell Owens is a special teams ace. Tight end has two locks in Lewis and Miller, so he would have to compete there for a third. Looks to me like a practice squad player. How often do early-round picks make their way to the practice squad?
6. Simple economics – It is the job of the scouting staff to not only evaluate the potential draft class, but also to evaluate how others are going to evaluate a potential draft class. There’s always a risk that another team will pick your player before you get a chance to draft him. That is where the best teams thrive. They jockey for positioning to take their guys in the proper slots. Even if Tebow was to save the franchise, no other team is going to feel that way. At best, another team could see him as a potential, serviceable starter. If that’s the case, the supply will remain long enough that the demand in an early round is miniscule.
This isn’t to say that he won’t find some role in the league. It is simply a way to show the absurdity of any claim that Jacksonville would see fit to select him anywhere near the first round. Of course, I will eat my words if I’m proven wrong, but I will expect to go hungry.
-C.C.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Lets talk Del Rio (Man am I going to suck at titles)
Let me start by saying, unlike many Jags fans, I’m fine with Del Rio as a head coach. Would I have been ok or even happy if he had taken the USC job? Yeah probably, but it would’ve been for many of the same reasons I’m ok with him staying.
(Side note: he claims there was no contract offer, which I believe, but there’s a lot of smoke for this to come out of nowhere. There’s a big gap between no contract offer and no communication).
It’s a bit simplistic to call Del Rio an average coach as a few have done (there’s only a few writing about the Jags but they’ve called him average). I tend to peg the maximum plus or minus of a coach at 10% or so. The best coach in the league makes his team 10% better, the worse coach makes his team 10% worse. I think Del Rio recognizes talent well and hasn’t shown any propensity to underdevelop guys. He’s not going to take a productive player and make him into a Pro Bowler, few coaches can, but he’s also not going to miss on talented guys. The implications of this are the Jaguars should compete to their talent level, which if you believe in Gene Smith (which every Jags fan should after last April’s draft), then that’s good enough. The arrow is pointing up (Ketchism). Some support for this narrative is that not a single player comes to mind during the Del Rio era as having failed with the Jags but gone on to have sustained success elsewhere. I’m not counting a Marcus Stroud, who was successful here, but more a Matt Jones type. I imagine there are a few of these players out there who are a little below my radar screen, similar to how Panthers fans aren’t beating themselves up over losing Atiyyah Ellsion, but the general point that we haven’t been watching good players walk away holds true.
Feel free to remind me if I’ve missed someone. It is a matter of degree, I wouldn’t count Brett Romberg, who started a fair number of games for the Rams but maybe you would.
Player development and talent evaluation at this point haven’t been a problem for Del Rio. Assistant coaches, or his inability to maintain a consistent staff, has been and will continue to be a legitimate issue. With the firing of Ted Monachino, according to the Times Union, the Jags have fired 19 coaches in seven years. Firing 2.7 coaches a year isn’t good. There are only a couple of possibilities for what it means…
1) Del Rio is really, really awful at hiring.
2) When things go wrong Del Rio throws assistant coaches under the bus.
I lean pretty heavily towards the second option. Most of the coaches Del Rio has fired are still coaching somewhere (check Atlanta’s staff, it’s a who’s who of former Jags assistants) or they’ve gone on to success elsewhere (See Ken Anderson, now retired). The problem with Del Rio’s quick trigger finger is that coaches aren’t dumb. If they have their choice between a Jags job and another opportunity, all things equal, they’ll take the other job. This puts the Jags at a competitive disadvantage and lets be honest we can’t expect the Jags to outspend other teams in the coaching department. I’m not saying some of the coaches shouldn’t have been let go but I doubt there were 19 guys who deserved to be fired. Tony Dungy refused to fire coaches and he was successful in Tampa and Indy.
Del Rio is good enough to win when he has talent, he proved that in 2005 and 2007. As a fan, I’m hesitant to go chasing a magical coach cure all. There’s a risk whenever you hire a new coach and the Jags have been fortunate that Weaver has exercised sound judgment in both cases when he had to hire someone. There’s also the Gene Smith factor here. On the one hand, he would almost certainly have a role in hiring his guy, which could be encouraging, but if they hired the wrong person and the team faltered then that could undermine his public support, thus endangering Gene Smith himself. Ultimately, I view this as a risk/reward proposition with the risk too high to justify getting rid of a consistent, if unspectacular performer.
-A.Q. DUB
(Side note: he claims there was no contract offer, which I believe, but there’s a lot of smoke for this to come out of nowhere. There’s a big gap between no contract offer and no communication).
It’s a bit simplistic to call Del Rio an average coach as a few have done (there’s only a few writing about the Jags but they’ve called him average). I tend to peg the maximum plus or minus of a coach at 10% or so. The best coach in the league makes his team 10% better, the worse coach makes his team 10% worse. I think Del Rio recognizes talent well and hasn’t shown any propensity to underdevelop guys. He’s not going to take a productive player and make him into a Pro Bowler, few coaches can, but he’s also not going to miss on talented guys. The implications of this are the Jaguars should compete to their talent level, which if you believe in Gene Smith (which every Jags fan should after last April’s draft), then that’s good enough. The arrow is pointing up (Ketchism). Some support for this narrative is that not a single player comes to mind during the Del Rio era as having failed with the Jags but gone on to have sustained success elsewhere. I’m not counting a Marcus Stroud, who was successful here, but more a Matt Jones type. I imagine there are a few of these players out there who are a little below my radar screen, similar to how Panthers fans aren’t beating themselves up over losing Atiyyah Ellsion, but the general point that we haven’t been watching good players walk away holds true.
Feel free to remind me if I’ve missed someone. It is a matter of degree, I wouldn’t count Brett Romberg, who started a fair number of games for the Rams but maybe you would.
Player development and talent evaluation at this point haven’t been a problem for Del Rio. Assistant coaches, or his inability to maintain a consistent staff, has been and will continue to be a legitimate issue. With the firing of Ted Monachino, according to the Times Union, the Jags have fired 19 coaches in seven years. Firing 2.7 coaches a year isn’t good. There are only a couple of possibilities for what it means…
1) Del Rio is really, really awful at hiring.
2) When things go wrong Del Rio throws assistant coaches under the bus.
I lean pretty heavily towards the second option. Most of the coaches Del Rio has fired are still coaching somewhere (check Atlanta’s staff, it’s a who’s who of former Jags assistants) or they’ve gone on to success elsewhere (See Ken Anderson, now retired). The problem with Del Rio’s quick trigger finger is that coaches aren’t dumb. If they have their choice between a Jags job and another opportunity, all things equal, they’ll take the other job. This puts the Jags at a competitive disadvantage and lets be honest we can’t expect the Jags to outspend other teams in the coaching department. I’m not saying some of the coaches shouldn’t have been let go but I doubt there were 19 guys who deserved to be fired. Tony Dungy refused to fire coaches and he was successful in Tampa and Indy.
Del Rio is good enough to win when he has talent, he proved that in 2005 and 2007. As a fan, I’m hesitant to go chasing a magical coach cure all. There’s a risk whenever you hire a new coach and the Jags have been fortunate that Weaver has exercised sound judgment in both cases when he had to hire someone. There’s also the Gene Smith factor here. On the one hand, he would almost certainly have a role in hiring his guy, which could be encouraging, but if they hired the wrong person and the team faltered then that could undermine his public support, thus endangering Gene Smith himself. Ultimately, I view this as a risk/reward proposition with the risk too high to justify getting rid of a consistent, if unspectacular performer.
-A.Q. DUB
Friday, January 22, 2010
Welcome to KPPBH!
Welcome! Our goal here is to create a forum for insightful, albeit opinionated, Jacksonville Jaguars analysis. All are invited to come and share in the revelry, so let us know if you are interested in contributing. As followers of the guidance of the great Vic Ketchman (Senior Editor of Jaguars.com), we will strive to pay him tribute while offering our own take on the state of the franchise. Enjoy!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
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