Blaine Gabbert. Gene Smith. It's all happening

This is it. Or at least the start of it. Blaine Gabbert's ascension to the starting quarterback position quickly shifts the Jaguars from a team that is building, putting players in place, improving, to a team that is to be evaluated on performance, or at a minimum clear signs of improvement. The pieces are in place. For all of us Gene Smith believers (I fully count myself), there will be no where left to hide.


Not that winning is immediately necessary but the responsibility for wins and losses or at a minimum the trajectory of those wins and losses is now squarely Smith's. With Gabbert now starting, each position group features at least one significant contributor that Smith drafted or was a prominent free agent (Quick list. RB: Karim, TE: Miller, OL: Monroe/Britton/Rackley, WR: Thomas/Shorts, DL: Knighton/Alualu, LB:Poz/Session, CB: Cox, S: Landry. I'm sure I missed someone but you get the idea).

I normally feel relatively confident about my read on the team but last week's loss shook me up pretty good. Not the loss itself as much as the total ineptitude. With that in mind, I'm going to run through a kind of upside/downside feeling going forward, somewhat on the season but really, more generally:

Upside

• The poor play could be limited to Luke McCown. This is, in many ways, best case scenario for the Jaguars. Good QB play hides many faults on a team (just ask the Colts) and poor QB play can make many aspects, even a defense, look pretty bad (Interceptions returned to the one, safeties, etc.).
• The Jaguars current defensive ranking of 5th (yards/game) is legitimate. They continue to improve and cement themselves as on the top defenses in the NFL.
• Eugene Monroe, and the offensive line, continue to play at an elite level. This enables Blaine Gabbert to comfortably stay in the pocket, improving his chance of success, as well as ameliorating what appeared to be a significant concern, poor pocket presence, during the preseason.
• The Jaguars WR corp posses more deep threat ability than originally thought. These hidden skills were covered up either by a QB with a strong arm but not particularly adept at throwing deep (Mr. Garrard) or a somewhat limited-arm QB (Mr. McCown). I'm trying to present these reasonably neutrally but I have to comment that this seems like the biggest reach. Here's hoping though...

Downside

• Blaine Gabbert never improves upon his physical talent. This is a pretty bad scenario. Presumably, the Jaguars would go at least the next two drafts without a new quarterback attempting to develop Gabbert. They'd squander the remaining prime of Maurice Jones-Drew's career. Even if the majority of other Smith draft picks turn out well, by the time the next QB emerges, let's say 5 or 6 years from now, many of those players are either moving on due to contract expiration or on the backside of their careers. Furthermore, one bad pick would endanger Gene Smith, causing fans to push for a change at the top.
•  The true quality of the Jaguars defense is measured by their points per game ranking, 16th. While this is certainly a step in the right direction, and a nice improvement from the abysmal ranking of 27th last year, it leaves the Jaguars with the hardest work yet to be done, but without an obvious means of getting there. The safety play was so poor last season and linebacker play so uninspiring that they presented potentially easy fixes. Resources aren't infinite though so if after dropping one bagillion dollars (I'm approximating), the defense is only mildly improved, the work left is more difficult to diagnose and there isn't much left to throw at fixing it. Improvement will be harder to identify and more costly.
• Monroe continues to struggle with consistency. More generally, a pattern emerges for Smith draft picks. Initially promising players fail to develop into guys who can consistently dominate one on one matches n a week-in, week-out basis.
• The wide receivers continue to struggle getting separation, hindering the development of Gabbert and costing him in terms of fan support (Jaguars fans seem particularly rough and quick in their evaluation of quarterbacks) and confidence, with a truly worse case effect being long-term damage to an otherwise promising talent.

I'm reasonably optimistic going forward but that's built more on faith than anything else. It would be nice if one of Smith's draft picks emerged as a legitimately dominant player this season (Here's to Knighton or Alualu). I do think the Jaguars defense has played better than the general perception (32 points in the largest media market will do that).

Not surprisingly, the perceived confirmation of what the national media already knew about the Jaguars resulted in a litany of smug, over confident put downs of the team. Even the New York Times got in on it, with an analogy to a third-world dictator no less, here's Mike Tanier on Gabbert taking over:

"Gabbert had to wait for his chance behind the ineffective journeyman Luke McCown, who replaced David Garrard, who was released just days before the season opener in a money-saving move. It is the kind of disorderly succession we normally associate with island nations ruled by individuals with the official title of “strong man,” but this is really how the Jaguars conduct business."

Even discounting the presentation of opinion as fact (Garrard's release may or may not have had anything to do with his salary), that's pretty rough.

With the prognosis looking somewhat grim (I literally haven't seen anyone pick the Jags against an 0-2 team. The consensus kind of blew my mind), I'll leave you with this Freakonomics analysis on the accuracy of national football prognosticators. How do you think they did? (Clue: They suck.)

-Q