By DjackThe revival of the Jacksonville Jaguars franchise has begun and who better to bring in the renaissance than the man who put Jacksonville on the map to begin with, Tom Coughlin. There were reports he might be offered the head coaching job, with his age that always seemed a little far-fetched, regardless him joining Jacksonville in an executive role is just as promising. The last time a former legendary Giants head coach became the VP of football operations it was Bill Parcells, and he managed to turn around a 1-15 team to an 11-5 playoff team. I'm guessing Jacksonville is looking for a similar chain of events with Coughlin coming to town. He built this franchise from nothing the first time and was able to bring them to two AFC championship games. Now the Jaguars are at least loaded with young talent, let's not forget the Jaguars were being considered as a possible playoff team before the season started. Unfortunately for them shit hit the fan, but still a lot of young talent on this roster waiting to blossom.
Doug Marrone was brought in as the official head coach after taking over Gus Bradley's duties after he was fired. Marrone has a little head coaching experience in Buffalo where he got them to their first winning season in over 10 years before leaving in a shady manor after ownership changed. Regardless, I think he was the right man for the job in Jacksonville considering his history there and the addition of Tom Coughlin, who I'm sure will bring Marone under his wing, will certainly help ease the transition. I believe the Jaguars might be able to finally gain some stability with this move if Coughlin and Marrone can build a good relationship. If Coughlin begins to micromanage everything, which is going to be tough for him to refrain from doing, then this is going to be a total disaster. If Coughlin just sticks to his job description, the Jaguars might just return to their early 2000's form.
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By DjackTom Savage cleared the concussion protocol today and will return to practice, which means a quarterback controversy will be taking place in Houston this week. Normally I'd say Savage is probably going to be the starter after the atrocious season Osweiler has had, but he did make some big throws last week, and led his team to a playoff victory. Kinda hard to bench a guy after his best game of the season. Not like any of this really matters because the Patriots are going to anihilate the Texans regardless of who starts, but still it's an interesting topic of debate. If I'm Bill O'Brien I ride the hot hand of Osweiler, maybe he can carry the momentum from last game over to this one, and have another solid performance like last week. Still won't be enough to beat the Pats, but it might keep the game competitive for a little longer. If Osweiler goes back to his usual ways bring in Tom Savage to try to spark the offense. I think that's exactly what they'll do, keep Osweiler on a very short leash, and then put in Savage if the offense is struggling. Let's also not forget that Osweiler has beaten the Pats before, as a matter of fact he played the best game of his career against the Pats, and maybe he can repeat that feat this time with the Texans. It'd be a crazy upset, some might even call it a miracle, but hey any given Sunday right. That Texans defense looked awfully good this weekend, although Connor Cook isn't even in the same universe as Tom Brady, but still they looked very intimidating. Maybe time to get a little overly optimistic Texans fans, until the Patriots go up 21-0 in the first quarter and bring you back to reality real quick. Hey, it was a good season though, and maybe just maybe Brock can save his career with another good playoff performance. Then let you down when he sucks in the regular season again next year. The Texans QB carousel keeps on spinning.
By DjackWild Card Weekend was a disappointing weekend for football fans around the country to say the least. The first the three matchups of the weekend were all duds before the first whistle even blew, that's what happens when there's not many good teams in the NFL, but the mark key matchup of the weekend was Giants-Packers. This was the game that was supposed to salvage the weekend, the only game that had a chance at being competitive, and that's why as a Giants fan this loss is far more demoralizing than all the other teams that got eliminated this weekend. Dolphins and Lions were just lucky to still be playing competitive football in January, and the Raiders lost their QB for the season, so none of those teams had a real shot. The Giants on the other hand had high expectation, Super Bowl expectations, and than Sunday evening in Lambeau happened.
The Giants got the ball to start the game and the offense was driving down the field with ease. We've seen the Giants offense struggle all season long to get any sort of rhythm, so to get it going early was a great confident boaster for the start of high anxiety game. Eli of course looked like he was in his typical playoff form which is always comforting to know he's playing at an elevated elite level. Unfortunately, Odell was not at the top his game, he dropped a ball he normally catches in the end zone, and the Giants ended having to settle for a field goal. This would become a theme throughout the course of the game, both settling and dropped passes. On the other side of the ball, the Giants defense shut Rodgers down in the first quarter, the coverage was suffocating the receivers, and the offense looked completely out of sync. It was the Giants time to strike, we needed to build a nice lead before Rodgers and the Packers potent offense finds their groove. Dropped passes, lack of a run game, and no creativity or unpredictability in the play calling lead to the Giants offense coming up short on most of their drives. Odell had 4 drops on the day, 2 of which probably would've led to scores, but he just wasn't ready for the big moment. He's 24, it'll come with time and experience... hopefully. The Giants defense continued to dominate Rodgers for most of the second quarter though, it really was looking like we weren't going to need to score all that many points to win. We had 4 sacks in the first half, a majority of those were coverage sacks to say the least, but in reality our secondary was wearing down from being in coverage so long on a majority of plays since our front four couldn't apply serious pressure. It'd end up hurting us later in the game, the absence of DRC wasn't helping either. We really missed JPP in this game and his ability to get after the quarterback. Rodgers was able to get a nice drive going with about 4 minutes left in the half and just like that the Packers were up 7-6 after being dominated the first 25 minutes of the game. To make matters worse they got the ball back with about a minute left, got to about the 50 yard line, Rodgers throws up a Hail Mary pass as time expires, and touchdown Packers as Randall Cobb sneaks behind everyone for the ball to drop in perfectly for a touchdown. 14-6 Packers, only Aaron Rodgers I swear. Guy can't do anything for 25 minutes of the half and winds up going into halftime with a great stat line and an 8 point lead. After the half, the Giants were able to make the score 14-13 after an Eli deep ball to Tavares King for a 41 yard touchdown. Hope was restored, but then quickly lost again as our defense began to fade, and Rodgers and Co. began to gain confidence, momentum, and a nice rhythm. From there on out it was all Packers. The Giants just collapsed and began to take a beat down. Bobby Rainey caught a kickoff and proceeded to step out of bounds at the three yardline instead of letting it go out and getting it at the 40. That basically sums up the Giants in the second half of this game, lack of awareness and mental toughness. We weren't ready for the moment, almost no one on this team has had any playoff experience except for Eli and Cruz, so this was unfamiliar territory for a lot of the guys. All in all I'm very happy with the Giants season despite the disappointing finish, a lot of things to be optimistic about with this team going forward, and like all the players said after the game yesterday, it's a great learning experience. To be completely honest, if I'm not winning the Super Bowl I'd rather lose in the first round. It's the least painful way to be eliminated, can't beat Green Bay in Lambeau everytime, great year regardless for the boys in blue. |
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AuthorDjack- Chief editor Archives
April 2018
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