The Jacksonville Jaguars

[Elwood]

Offense looks light years ahead of last year though. The Gabbert to Blackmon connection is a beautiful thing.

[Keith-N-Jax]

A lot of starters out. I hope people keep that in mind.

[duvaldude08]

Defense in every aspect was terriable tonight. Joe Flacco completely burned Middleton every single time ( thank god hes not our starter.) and the 2nd and 3rd string defense looked defenseless for the most part. Our first string offense didnt look bad, just too many errors and nothing went right tonight. Gabbert was calm in the pocket and didnt turn the ball over. And Blackmon was a beast as usual. The Ravens defense was just all over us tonight.  As we said, its the preseason. We knew going in this would be a test. Rather it happen now, than later

[duvaldude08]

Offense looks light years ahead of last year though. The Gabbert to Blackmon connection is a beautiful thing.

You got that right. Its extremely balanced and thats a good start. We still have to work on getting it deep, but a balanced attack is good.

[duvaldude08]

Calm down, brother.  Have a drink.  Enjoy it.  Don't go all I-10 on us....  (sorry 10, had to) 

This is why you don't get all hyped up over a few really good drives that we've seen.  Now, we're seeing some pretty shitty drives, but there's no reason to get too worked up over those either.  The thing to keep in mind is that we've seen sparks - we know they can do things - it's going to be doing it consistently.  As long as we don't look completely stagnant, I'm good.

Im good sir. LOL I actually didnt drink at all. Im calm. Its the preseason. Del Rio left this team in a mess, so I dont expect an overnight miracle or anything. Even though our first string didnt produce a TD, they were atleast moving the ball. The few miss catches were due to the Ravens doing their job. They had us covered all night. Gabbert maybe rushed one or two throws, other than that no issues with him.  Also noticed they experiemented with some no huddle and was letting gabbert call plays at the line of scrimmage. That was nice! OUr secondary wasnt bad, but Middleton was horriable. But hes not a starter so We can breathe a sigh of relief on that. If cox and Mathis were in the whole night. Flacco would not have gotten anywhere. The great thing about the NFL, there is always next week.

[I-10east]

Calm down, brother.  Have a drink.  Enjoy it.  Don't go all I-10 on us....  (sorry 10, had to) 

Haha! We'll be okay, no way I'm gonna get all worked up over a pre-season game. A lot of Jags fans take preseason way too seriously. I can't wait until we play Minny, then is the time to get worked up if things don't go as planned. As Keith said, we had a few of our key starters out in that game.

[blizz01]

I suppose that MJD recorded the game last night while he was @ the new Fiat dealership in OP......

Jones-Drew was attending a previously scheduled appearance at the dealership, which is owned by his friend, Jack Hanania.

Previously scheduled to coincide with a game?  Really?  Come on.

http://jacksonville.com/sports/football/jaguars/2012-08-23/story/maurice-jones-drew-didnt-think-holdout-would-last-long

[duvaldude08]

 I feared getting online today. I just knew there were going to tons of articles saying" Gabbert took a step back." Etc etc..Shockingly..... I havent seen one. Ive been CBSsports, ESPN and NFL.com. The only the talked about was our defense collapse. (that was more like an avalanche LOL) They actually pointed out the Gabbert to Blackmon connection and how good it is. And how we FINALLY have a go to guy.  I was telling people this last season, when gabbert has a reliable receiver to throw to, he's on on top of his game. I dont blame anything on him from last night. Our receiver just did not get open. (except for blackmon) Most time he had no where to go.

On another note, I love that Mularkey is not using excuses for the lost. (like Del Rio would have). He did point that he thinks the guys were just drained. Two road trip within 6 days and grueling practices in between may have zapped their energy. When you think about it, the team's tempo's was off last night. But I love murlarkeys not using that as an excuse. Its a good thing hes been working on their conditioning though.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I mentioned this to someone today, and it truly does worry me a little.

When we played the Saints, we were basically manhandling them and doing what we wanted.  Then there was that moment when Brees gave a look to the coach that basically said, "Shut the fuck up, I'm running the rest of this series."  They went no-huddle and he picked us apart for the TD.

Last night, the Ravens ran a seriously up-tempo, no-huddle offense and had their way with us.  When the checked back to the standard, huddle, run, pass, we were able to hold them, but for the entire time that Flacco called the game from the line of scrimmage - we didn't have an answer. 

This is something that I've noticed that honestly bothers me.  What's to prevent a Cleveland Browns team from running a really uptempo offense just because they know that to this point, we haven't had an answer for it.

[duvaldude08]

I mentioned this to someone today, and it truly does worry me a little.

When we played the Saints, we were basically manhandling them and doing what we wanted.  Then there was that moment when Brees gave a look to the coach that basically said, "Shut the fuck up, I'm running the rest of this series."  They went no-huddle and he picked us apart for the TD.

Last night, the Ravens ran a seriously up-tempo, no-huddle offense and had their way with us.  When the checked back to the standard, huddle, run, pass, we were able to hold them, but for the entire time that Flacco called the game from the line of scrimmage - we didn't have an answer. 

This is something that I've noticed that honestly bothers me.  What's to prevent a Cleveland Browns team from running a really uptempo offense just because they know that to this point, we haven't had an answer for it.

I an tell what would prevent that....A Cleveland Browns type team cant run a no huddle, up tempo tpye offense. There are actually not many teams that can do that good. Honestly, it takes team with a very good offense and a very good QB to pull that off effectively. Any team can try, but how many can actually do it? At this point, I wouldnt push the panic button on that just. yet. For the most part we are seeing what we seen the end of last season. When Mathis and Cox are out, the secondary is trash and we get burned. Now THAT is what bothers me. Mathis has been pretty much healthy his entire career and I dont really see him going down again, but Cox is injury prone.  If this were the regular season and we have to go up against and green bay with Middleton in the secondary, I would be pushing the panic button. HARD. Know what I mean?

[duvaldude08]

The axe has start coming down. Dujuan Harris, Youbooty, Mike Holmes, chastin west and a few others have been cut so far. Dujuan harris just had too much competition. With MJD and Jenning being our top two, he had to battle with tolston and Parmele, who have both been outstanding. Youbooty was just okay to start with. When Mathis and Cox went out last year, he was one of the people getting burned in our secondary and caused us to get our assed kicked by the Chargers and Falcons. I loved his name thought! 

[mtraininjax]

On another note, I love that Mularkey is not using excuses for the lost. (like Del Rio would have). He did point that he thinks the guys were just drained. Two road trip within 6 days and grueling practices in between may have zapped their energy.

Note to Mularkey, in the regular season don't whip your boys to the point of exhaustion, or it will be hard to fill the seats at Everbank Field. We know what it is to lose games, we did so with Del Rio.

Still, the accountability, as you mention DD, was refreshing. Still wish Laurent could catch a damn ball. Frenette had a good column yesterday though, still preseason, and not time to compare him to Jerry Porter......yet.

[duvaldude08]

On another note, I love that Mularkey is not using excuses for the lost. (like Del Rio would have). He did point that he thinks the guys were just drained. Two road trip within 6 days and grueling practices in between may have zapped their energy.

Note to Mularkey, in the regular season don't whip your boys to the point of exhaustion, or it will be hard to fill the seats at Everbank Field. We know what it is to lose games, we did so with Del Rio.

Still, the accountability, as you mention DD, was refreshing. Still wish Laurent could catch a damn ball. Frenette had a good column yesterday though, still preseason, and not time to compare him to Jerry Porter......yet.

Yeah I agree. Some of the players even admitted they didn't game plan like they wanted because it was a time crunch. Its a learning lesson for Mularkey. But that shows why Mularkey keeps hammering them at practice. They were very poorly conditioned under Del Rio. That's why they always "ran out of gas" at the end of the season, or played good this week and terrible next week. If were going to make through the season, to the playoffs, and hopefully to the superbowl on day, we can run out of gas. And I again say I loved that Mularkey gave no excuses. You know Del Rio what have said, " yes we are a play off caliber team" LMAO

The thing Im not liking are the locals. The residents and local media. Of course good ole Gene at the times Union stated the Jags needed to get knocked of their high horse. Really? What is that for you local media to say. Not to mention the locals echo that. Sometimes I think we are our worse posion. When the Jags win, everyone in the city is silent, when they lose you see and hear, " I knew it, same ole Jags." No one said we were not ever gonna lose a game or even get blowed out. The Ravens laid a couple of eggs last year. They got killed by crappy teams to include the Jags and the Seahawks. But they still made it to the AFC championship game. Shit happens in the NFL. No team is perfect. If anything, it was a reality check to the over excited fans, but our local need to support these guys and not always be so negative. What gene wrote was completely out of line in my book. The National media has not even been bashing us. All they've been saying is "Gabbert backsled a little, but his chemistry with Blackmon is something to watch." They did not even make a huge deal about our lost.

One more thing and I'm done (lol). All the Justin Blackmon hate. When Cam Newton got drafted, they praised him all the way through the preseason. Now that its our turn, and the national media are taking notice, I see comments like "Its just the preseason. Its to early to start praising him." Sometimes I think nobody, including people in this city, want anything good for this team.

[ben says]

Rashad Jennings starting RB Week 1.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Rashad Jennings starting RB Week 1.

Most A lot Those of us with some understanding don't look at this as a bad thing. 

Has anyone played this scenario yet, MJD doesn't report until Week 10, the Jags are 6-3, 5-4, bring him in the fold over the next 2-3 weeks and he starts hitting full stride on fresh legs in time for the AFC East swing of our schedule...  I won't mind.