I have lived down here in Jacksonville since '00. First of all, I'm not too big on the Jag's fans. They are indeed a fickle bunch. Home field advantage comes from the shrinking of the stands (Having to cover in excess of 10,000 seats to avoid blackouts). The perpetual excuse is that the stadium is too big for the city, when in fact, when the bandwagon was full in the winning seasons, they had sellout after sellout. Anyways, as far as this team goes, Stroud and Henderson are the best tandem in the middle in the league; however, I think that Henderson is the one who should have been going to pro bowl(s) while Stroud should have been a reserve. Yes, the Jag's defense was abused by the Redskins last Sunday, but I think that had more to do with playing arguably, the toughest first quarter of a season schedule in the league. The strength of the Jag's defense to me is the overall team speed! Mike Petersen (LB) is the most underrated player on the team. Until this season, I thought that Rashean Mathis was overrated too, he has since proven me wrong (Although he was abused on a couple of plays by Marvin Harrison). Paul Spicer is another player that is underrated on that defense (DE) and Rob Meir taking over for the injured Reggie Haywood, is another gem. Along with Mike Pete, Darryl Smith is a very good player waiting to happen, it's just a matter of time before he becomes known leaguewide. I have to admit, Donovin Darius may just be the best run supporting strong safety in the league. He may not be that great at pass defense, but against the run, he is as important as Stroud and Henderson. Deon Grant is a guy that I really like personally, but I think that he is very solid! Not great, just very solid. Brian Williams, the new acquisiton from the Vikings, still leaves something to be desired. He played well against the Steelers and had not had much to say afterwards, especially against the Skins last Sunday. Offensively, I thought that this would be the first season that Fred Taylor was going to go to the pro bowl (The best active player not to go to a pro bowl). Because of the emergence of rookie (2nd round) Maurice Jones-Drew, not only is he explosive and taking away a lot of Fred's carries, he is amazingly, at 5'7" 212 lbs, a better pass blocker than Taylor! The offensive line has gotten better as a unit; in my opinion, Khalief Barnes (LT), the 2nd year man out of Washington, is the most talented and nastiest of the group. Byron Leftwich had a very good game against the Skins. Believe it or not, I said that Leftwich was going to be a future hall of famer when he had come out of Marshall 4 years ago; so far, not so good, but he has a lot of football to play over the next several seasons. Anyway, with Reggie Williams finally playing like the first rounder that he was 3 seasons ago, there may still be some validity to my argument. Also, with the quazi emergence of some tight end play and Ernest Wilford and Matt Jones on occasion, there is potential for an offensive explosion. The Jag's biggest achilles heel would be their field goal kicking game. Josh Scobey blows to say the very least! By the way, Derrick Winbush on special teams and if he gets a chance, Cortez hankton (WR) have some ability to go under the radar and cause some damage. In a nutshell, that's what I have to say right now, so just chew on this and let me know what you all think.
nice analysis from the other perspective. from what i've seen of Leftwich, he is good at finding guys when he's pressured. fortunately for us, we don't generate any pressure, so maybe we'll drop some guys into coverage and force Leftwich to throw the ball into very tight spots (which he's also good at, but it's still risky) perhaps leading to deflected balls, and thus, turnovers. at this point, im convinced that we can move the ball on just about yDefense; maybe not initially, but as the game progresses, the Offensive adjustments have been outstanding. with Washington getting the rock earlier, i think our Offense will keep things close. as for our Defense, well..... f**k. cheers
I have a bad feeling that Maurice Drew is going to slash up the defense if we don't crowd the line of scrimmage and if we bring up the safeties Leftwich will throw deep on us.
If Rhodes and I-die (spelling) can torch our RUn D, Taylor n Drew COmbo a pretty scary combo. if we Lose, we lost cuz they ran all over us. I would prefer Leftwich beat us than those 2.
Last year game 3 when we played the Jags, they ran it down our throats and it didn't matter if we ran a 4-3 or 3-4. The run D needs to step it up this weekend if we are going to stay with this team. Look for aggressive play calling again to get a win out of this.
