The Jacksonville Jaguars

[spuwho]

One must remember;

Timmy is still under contract. For a team to even express interest in any form publicly is subject to a tampering charge.

ESPN is renown for speculative reporting. Speculative in that, they report as fact what they expect the situation to be.

On the flip side, ESPN's Adam Shefter was reporting Mularkey's release before the press release was even issued by the Jaguars. So that means either Mularkey or his agent called or texted Shefter right after he met with Caldwell and Shad.

IMHO: Timmy's career is just about over in the NFL. For any GM to speak out so forcefully (tampering rules considered) about his suitability for a role is shocking and probably sends a message on where his standing is on most GM's talent charts. The two people in the NFL who had designs for his use were fired shortly after.

If I were to be speculative (like ESPN) I would surmise that once the GM/coaching situation has settled down with all of the teams, that Timmy will be shopped around. If there are no takers (I suspect there won't now) that he will get his release. He will come into a team's camp as a free agent, not make the roster and get cut. He will float around in the free agent ether for the rest of the year (like kickers do) awaiting some team who have lost all of their QB's to injury etc. Once the 2013/14 season is over and when he doesn't land anywhere, he will announce his retirement and go back to working with his foundation, do missionary work and make public speaking appearances.

[copperfiend]

Even Jeff Prosser is finally admitting that TT's next stop will probably be the CFL.

[downtownjag]

I don't dislike Tim at all; I actually like the guy.  What I dislike are the people who stick up for his abilities like he's Joe Montana.  It's ridiculous and lacks logic.

[If_I_Loved_you]

Tim Tebow was a Great college Quarterback this we all know. But its the way he throws the ball that gets him in trouble? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/sports/football/a-gifted-athlete-tim-tebow-has-plenty-of-flaws.html?_r=0

[duvaldude08]

^ I always liked Harris. He reminded me a lil of MJD with his speed and shiftiness. It's a shame we released him. At the time i guess we 'thought' we had a logjam at RB.

Reminds me of MJD also... Gene Smith let a good one go...

Sadly, Harris' saga is a fitting epitaph for the Gene era.  It was Gene who discovered him as an undrafted FA and gave him an opportunity to show his potential, but then let go of him.

I was utterly pissed when we let him go. Im not even a GM or scout but seen the potential in him to be explosive. He was powerful and fast. Im not shocked he's doing well. Im happy for him.

Sorry to keep posting stuff on this guy... but I find his story fascinating...

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packers/harris-sells-team-on-his-abilities-f28arjm-186409211.html

Running back keeps learning nuances of job


By Tom Silverstein of the Journal Sentinel

Jan. 10, 2013

Green Bay - DuJuan Harris is a competitor.
Once he starts something, he pours all he has into it.

Maybe it comes from being 5-foot-7 and not being taken seriously as a football player. Or maybe it's because he just doesn't like to lose. Or maybe it's because he doesn't want to be known as a quitter.

Whatever the case, it wasn't surprising to hear the Green Bay Packers' new starting running back talk about going back to finish what he started at Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram Arlington in Jacksonville, Fla., once the football season ends.

"I just got off the phone with them," Harris said this week as he prepared for the Packers' divisional playoff game in San Francisco. "They just told me they sold 10 cars. That's live. That is live. Why not be a part of that?"

Harris was only one week into his new job as a salesman there when Packers director of pro personnel Eliot Wolf called to tell him the Packers would like to add him to the team's practice squad. He had been cut by the Jaguars at the end of training camp, claimed on waivers by the Steelers and released four days later.

Who knows when the next call might have come, so there was no hesitation with his answer.

At the dealership, they understood.

"Why not?" said sales manager Roland Helton. "You've got to try it. Before he left, I told him, 'I want see you do the Lambeau Leap,' And I got to see him do it."

It took awhile for Harris to get to that stage, but making it here is just one phase of the professional dream. Staying here is the other.

Harris virtually has come out of nowhere to become the team's lead back, leapfrogging Alex Green, Ryan Grant and James Starks in just the couple of weeks he has been on the 53-man roster.

In the five games in which he has played, he has rushed 34 times for 157 yards (4.6 average) and scored two touchdowns. He has also caught two passes for 17 yards. The Packers are 5-1 since he came aboard and have topped the 100-yard rushing mark in three of those five games.

Harris will face his toughest test Saturday night against the rugged 49ers defense, but he doesn't appear fazed by that challenge or the magnitude of the game. He has tried to approach things the same way since the day he began playing cornerback in practice to help prepare the offense.

"Since I've been here I've just been trying to help the team win," Harris said. "Even when I was on the practice squad I was trying to give them a real look. My mind-set hasn't changed."

Only time will tell if Harris is the real deal or just another in a long line of backs who have had their 15 minutes of fame here such as Samkon Gado, Dimitri Nance, DeShawn Wynn, Najeh Davenport and De'Mond Parker.

All the Packers know is that right now, Harris is helping them win. His dart-and-dash running style is something the Packers have not had for a long time and opponents are finding themselves keenly aware that he can be past the line of scrimmage before they even catch sight of him.

His enormous thighs, strong upper body and large, soft hands got him a shot at the practice squad, but it has been his competitiveness, studiousness and unflappability that has taken him beyond the scout team.

"I think he's kind of a 'Transformer,' " quarterback Aaron Rodgers said recently. "There's more than meets the eye with DuJuan. He's a very tough guy. He's got great athleticism, agility; he makes some great jump cuts.

"He's a little guy, but he's tough. You have to give him a lot of credit. He's learned the offense the last few weeks and studied, obviously, and the package for him is just going to continue to grow."

Shortly before Harris was signed, running backs coach Alex Van Pelt was informed by the personnel department that he was going to be given a new guy to train. He had just lost Cedric Benson for the year and Starks for at least a month, so his mind was on the guys already in the meeting room.

That is, until he actually met Harris, face-to . . . well, let's just say in person.

"They just told me, 'You have a new guy named DuJuan and he'll be in there today,' " said Van Pelt, a 6-1 former NFL quarterback. "He was just different than other body types we've had, which is good. Once he stepped on the practice field that first week, it was, 'OK, I see something to him.' He's a talented runner."

In the five weeks Harris was on the practice squad, he opened eyes serving both as a look-team cornerback for the offense and a running back for the defense. With his Rubik's Cube body frame, stylish dreadlocks and on-field chattiness, Harris quickly became a favorite among his teammates.

Harris made his debut at home against Detroit, getting the ball on his very first play from scrimmage because coach Mike McCarthy had wanted to get a look at him the week before against Minnesota but never found the right place to insert him.

A Lambeau Field crowd bore witness to Harris' explosiveness when, after taking the handoff from Rodgers, he burst through the line for an 11-yard gain. He finished with 31 yards on seven carries, including a 14-yard touchdown run that put his tremendous leg strength on display when he did his first Lambeau Leap.

Harris continued to have an impact in the team's victories over Tennessee and Chicago and busted loose for 70 yards rushing and 17 yards receiving in a season-ending loss to the Vikings. He followed that performance up with 100 total yards and a touchdown in a wild-card rematch.

"DuJuan brings that extra element of speed," Van Pelt said. "He's a natural athlete."

Harris has come a long way since joining the Jaguars as an undrafted free agent out of Troy, where he rushed for 2,635 yards and 27 touchdowns and caught 79 passes for 553 yards and five touchdowns. He has had to pick up an offense whose pass protection scheme is extremely challenging and mesh with a new offensive line.

Upon arriving in Green Bay, Harris received intensive one-on-one tutoring from Van Pelt. The two basically started out the way the other backs had in training camp and went over everything from how the holes in the line are numbered to which calls mean the play is going right and which mean it is going left.

"I'm still trying to learn it," he said. "I'm getting there, progressing. Still a long way away."

While pass protection has been the hardest thing for Harris to learn, he is a willing blocker. And in the wild-card victory, his presence in the backfield on passing downs proved fruitful when he caught a pair of check-down passes from Rodgers and turned them into substantial gains.

The Packers are hoping this aspect of his game will help them attack the open zones in Cover-2 defenses, although the 49ers don't play the traditional Tampa-2 and won't be as susceptible to those routes. Harris is likely to split time with Starks, who is expected to return this weekend, but he'll get first crack and if he is effective may render the other backs unnecessary.

Regardless of what happens Saturday night, Harris knows one thing is for sure. He's going back to selling cars when the season is over. They've been doing good business there recently and he is determined to sell his first. He isn't one to give up so easily.

"He can come back if he wants to," Helton said

I cant wait to see him play again. I knew he would be something. Glad he kept fighting. He was passed over twice but looks like he may have found home. But I think he fell victim to us having to many running backs. If you remember at one point it was like six of them competing for a spot.

[duvaldude08]

Someone finally is being honest :

Mike Westoff: Tim Tebow situation an 'absolute mess'0 By Kareem Copeland Around the League Writer
Published: Jan. 11, 2013 at 10:56 a.m. Updated: Jan. 11, 2013 at 11:39 a.m. 
   
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New York Jets special teams coordinator Mike Westoff is always entertaining. So you know he's got some good stuff when the topic shifts to Tim Tebow.

Now PlayingNFL AudioJets former special teams coordinator Mike Westhoff says the Jets' handling of Tim Tebow was 'an absolute mess.'Description of AudioNew York Jets former special teams coordinator Mike Westhoff joins 560-AM WQAM in South Florida, and told Joe Rose that the Jets' handling of quarterback Tim Tebow was a huge distraction to the team and an absolute mess.
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"It was a mess," Westoff said on 560-AM WQAM, via the New York Daily News. "It was an absolute mess. You can say it however else you want it: It was really a mess. I was very disappointed."

"A mess" is probably the perfect description. Making things even more interesting, Westoff has the same questions most of us have.

"To be honest, I don't think anybody has really answered that question: Why did we do it?" Westoff said. "I honestly don't know. I know we didn't practice it. We didn't practice it in training camp. We were going to unveil it. Well, I'm still waiting for the unveiling. And it didn't happen.

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"It's very disappointing. But again, if you just say this is a quintessential NFL drop back quarterback, no he's not. He's just not. But if you use him a lot of different facets, in my opinion, I think he's outstanding. If you do that. But we didn't do it. And it was a distraction ... and really a shame. Because that's a hard-working young man if you ever saw one. Believe me."

A distraction? How could Westoff say such things?

Westoff added that the original plan was to play Tebow on special teams one percent of the time. That became much more. And new Jacksonville Jaguars general manager David Caldwell doesn't want anything to do with Tebow. His future in New York is unknown.

"There are thing that Tim Tebow, as an NFL quarterback ... he's very limited in some things," Westoff said. "If you throw him right in the middle of a drop-back passing offense, he will look very very average at best. But if you incorporate him in different facets of your offense, I think he can be a factor. That's what I felt we were going to do, but we never did it. We could put him in for a play. I was expecting to see him line up as a ... really, to tell you the truth ... a couple roles. I'll give you example ... an H-back. A tight end. ... And then he's lined up at quarterback. That's what I was expecting to see. And we didn't do it.

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"My role with him was really only to be like 1 percent. That's all I was thinking. Then when Eric Smith got hurt, I had to use him full-time. I didn't have anyone. I was stuck I lost two guys. ... Most of the stuff he did for me, he did outstanding. But it was supposed to be only a fraction and it ended up being his only role."

This is the most honest public evaluation of Tebow from anyone within the organization. He's asking the same questions the rest of us did.

Sadly (for Jets fans), Westoff is one of the guys who should know more than the rest of us.

[I-10east]

I loved the way when after Dave Caldwell addressed the Tebow issue, he chuckled when calling the next reporters name, that was classic, like "in yo face Tebow zombies". I'm so glad that he got the chance to get rid of that cancerous issue immediately. Notice their has been more praise of the GM versus outrage on the radio, the ones who like the move are real Jag fans.

[fsujax]

I agree I-10, i never want to hear Tebow and Jags in the same sentence again. Over it!

[copperfiend]

I loved the way when after Dave Caldwell addressed the Tebow issue, he chuckled when calling the next reporters name, that was classic, like "in yo face Tebow zombies". I'm so glad that he got the chance to get rid of that cancerous issue immediately. Notice their has been more praise of the GM versus outrage on the radio, the ones who like the move are real Jag fans.

It didn't take him long to get introduced the GOB Tebowner media in Jacksonville. Lamm, Frangie, Hicken, Kouvaris. The local sports media in this town needs some fresh voices.

[Wacca Pilatka]

I loved the way when after Dave Caldwell addressed the Tebow issue, he chuckled when calling the next reporters name, that was classic, like "in yo face Tebow zombies". I'm so glad that he got the chance to get rid of that cancerous issue immediately. Notice their has been more praise of the GM versus outrage on the radio, the ones who like the move are real Jag fans.

It didn't take him long to get introduced the GOB Tebowner media in Jacksonville. Lamm, Frangie, Hicken, Kouvaris. The local sports media in this town needs some fresh voices.

Yes, badly.  Although I do give Lamm credit for very reasonable statements on his blog re: who the next coach should be.

[duvaldude08]

So Im at work and isntead of working Im thinking about the Jaguars. (LOL). There will be roster moves, but it is impossible to turn over an entire roster in one offseason. Here's how I think it will play out starting with Free Agency:

Rasheen Mathis- playing has decline and hes a 10 year vet. He's toast
Greg Jones-Released only because of his position
Rashad Jenning-Released
Eden Britton-Released
Pot Roast-Will keep for the right price. He will probably want starter pay and wont get it here, and will shop around
Brad Meester-We drafted Brewster as a Guard, so Meester can finally retire.
Daryl Smith-Has plenty left in the tank, will get a 3 year extention.

Other players:

MJD will be here, but I think we will draft a RB late in the draft because MJD is getting old and its time to start grooming someone else. He stated Gabbert and Henne will stay and compete, and it sounds like he's either going to draft a QB or bring one in to compete against them in traning camp. I think that the best way to handle that so Im good. Everything else will come down to the drafting and trimming the 90 man roster during the preseason. Just my opinon, so dont beat me up for it 

[duvaldude08]

I loved the way when after Dave Caldwell addressed the Tebow issue, he chuckled when calling the next reporters name, that was classic, like "in yo face Tebow zombies". I'm so glad that he got the chance to get rid of that cancerous issue immediately. Notice their has been more praise of the GM versus outrage on the radio, the ones who like the move are real Jag fans.

It didn't take him long to get introduced the GOB Tebowner media in Jacksonville. Lamm, Frangie, Hicken, Kouvaris. The local sports media in this town needs some fresh voices.

I depise our local media, especially the sports anchors. They report to much gossip and not enough facts for me. And they are overly dramatic about EVERYTHING

[Wacca Pilatka]

I think you are right in your predictions about what free agents will and will not stay.  I hope Daryl is staying.  If we switch to 3-4 it's hypothetically possible that he won't, though I think he'd fit in as a 3-4 inside LB.

The other big, big free agent decision is Derek Cox.

[duvaldude08]

I think you are right in your predictions about what free agents will and will not stay.  I hope Daryl is staying.  If we switch to 3-4 it's hypothetically possible that he won't, though I think he'd fit in as a 3-4 inside LB.

The other big, big free agent decision is Derek Cox.

I think we are going to tag Cox. They probably want to see him play a full season injury free before giving him a big pay day. About the defense, if we swtiched to a 3-4 that would really hurt our defense as it stands. EVerybody their is built for 4-3. Thats why Poz is here. (Buffalo switched and he no longer fit)  We switch to 3-4 we may lose our only good players on defense. Hopefully they leave it alone.

[Wacca Pilatka]

Tagging Cox would make sense to me.  I hope he stays healthy and is here for many years.  Good player, good person, I have a signed jersey of his, and based on the team Christmas video he's the second best singer on the roster after Mincey. 

I could see Branch adapting to being a 3-4 OLB, Daryl to being a 3-4 ILB, and Alualu and Mosley to being 3-4 DEs (I think Alualu was one in college and Mosley was with the Jets), but the rest of the defenders wouldn't be good fits in a 3-4.  Poz as you mentioned didn't enjoy or fit 3-4 in Buffalo, Babin wouldn't work in a 3-4, Mincey wouldn't work in a 3-4.  And Daryl, while I think he could survive in a 3-4, is optimal as a 4-3 OLB.  A switch to 3-4 would probably entail a large draft and FA based overhaul and several players being pushed out of Jacksonville.