Tag: Jacksonville Jaguars

With Coughlin being Coughlin, Marrone already looks like a short-timer

Jaguars coach Doug Marrone is facing an unusual dynamic this season that no NFL coach has ever faced.

He’s got Tom Coughlin as his boss.

Coughlin, who built the most successful NFL expansion team ever in his first tenure with the Jaguars, is back this year in a new role.

He’s the executive vice president of football operations, but he’s not the coach.

In his first stint with the Jaguars, Coughlin also ran the show, but he was the coach. So Coughlin couldn’t second-guess himself.

Continue reading “With Coughlin being Coughlin, Marrone already looks like a short-timer”

Horrific practice underscores Bortles’ shaky status with Jaguars

Ryan Mallett of the Baltimore Ravens showed Friday that quarterbacks sometimes have a meltdown in training camp.

He threw “at least five interceptions,’’ according to reports from the Ravens’ training camp, and almost threw two more.

“Tell (offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg) to tell Mallett to throw to the guys wearing the purple (offensive) jerseys,” Terrell Suggs said.

Mallett even threw a white towel in the air after the last one.

Blake Bortles of the Jaguars matched it Saturday night in the team’s first padded practice before more than 4,000 season-ticket holders invited to practice.

Continue reading “Horrific practice underscores Bortles’ shaky status with Jaguars”

Leftwich faces impossible task grooming Gabbert into legit quarterback

Imagine an NFL team drafting a quarterback with a top-ten pick twice in nine drafts.

Imagine that both of them are busts.

And imagine that one of them winds up coaching the other one.

Sounds a bit far-fetched, but that’s happening with the Arizona Cardinals this year.

Byron Leftwich, the seventh pick in the 2003 draft by the Jaguars, was hired as Arizona’s quarterbacks coach by Bruce Arians in the offseason.

Continue reading “Leftwich faces impossible task grooming Gabbert into legit quarterback”

Seahawks’ problem is no run game, not Wilson

Bart Starr, Bob Griese, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, John Elway and Tom Brady are members of an exclusive club.

They are the NFL quarterbacks who’ve won back-to-back Super Bowls. All are in the Hall of Fame except for Brady, who will be enshrined after he retires.

Three years ago, Russell Wilson of Seattle was a yard away from joining that club.

But the Seahawks decided not to have Wilson hand off to Marshawn Lynch on second down to get the yard that would have given the Seahawks the victory over New England and back-to-back titles.

Instead, the coaches told Wilson to throw a pass and it was intercepted and the fallout is still hanging over the Seahawks.

Continue reading “Seahawks’ problem is no run game, not Wilson”

Time to look back … and time to look ahead

From typewriters and linotype machines to computers and the Internet.

Those were just some of the changes I’ve seen in the news business during my six decades of writing for newspapers.

So now, in another sign of the changing times, I’m starting my own website.

On this site, I plan on commenting on current events – giving my opinions and observations – as well as talking about how things used to be.

I won’t try to say things were better back in the day. Times change and you have to change with them. Which is why I am now blogging. But they were definitely different.

Sometimes, I feel like a buggy-whip maker driving a race car because things have changed with the speed of light.

Continue reading “Time to look back … and time to look ahead”