The Jacksonville Jaguars

[MusicMan]

Run first please.

[BridgeTroll]

I think it's Trevor's hairstyle.

Lol... have you seen Rodger's...??  Lol

[Snaketoz]

It's worth trying the white sidewalls BT

[Ken_FSU]

I ain't mad.

We've made some dumb mistakes these last two weeks, but we're five games into the season, and the Jags have been competitive in all five games. Our three losses have all been by one score, and we've actually put up 31 more points (111) than we've allowed on the season so far (80). At this point last season, we'd already been outscored by nearly 70 points.

Long season. We're less than 30 percent of the way in. Keep the faith.

[Snaketoz]

I agree.

[Ken_FSU]

20-22 for Trevor, no turnovers, almost 300 yards on the ground.

I still ain't mad.

We're still learning to close out games, but RADICALLY different team than we've seen in recent years.

[Ken_FSU]

Jax should probably be sweating after seeing the deal and price tag for the proposed new Titans stadium.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-11327841/amp/Nashville-NFLs-Titans-announce-plans-replace-23-year-old-stadium-2-1b-dome.html

Cannot possibly imagine our upgrades costing less than $1 billion.

Have said it for years, but I love the 55,000 to 60,000 capacity the Titans are going for. And they don't seem worried about attracting CFP and Super Bowl games. Zero reason to build and maintain a cavernous 70k seat stadium for one FL/GA a year that's not even locked in long term.

[Snaketoz]

The Jaguars defeated themselves-again.

[Ken_FSU]

Going back to stadium capacity, when you've got a stadium set up for 67,000 in a smaller market like Jacksonville, which is a larger capacity than Chicago, Detroit, Phoenix, Indianapolis, Miami, Tampa, Minneapolis, New England, etc., you create a situation where there's a massive gap between ticket supply and ticket demand for regular season NFL games, particularly when the product on the field is bad.

Contributes to these situations like today where it's too easy and too cheap for 20,000 opposing fans to flock to our stadium, fill that gap, a
take away any semblance of home field advantage, and create 30-year false narratives that Jax doesn't have a good fanbase. 

Have been saying since the day that I moved to Jax - our stadium is too large for our market and it doesn't reflect the direction that sports stadiums have been moving for the last decade. Going 55k max with the renovation like Nashville is talking about doing and smartly enhancing the intimacy and game day experience for a smaller crowd would be the absolute smartest move the city and the Jags could make. Would swing supply back in line with demand, or even slightly below it, which should push ticket prices up for the Jags across the board. At most, this renovation is going to buy us another 20 years before a total rebuild is necessary. At that point, maybe Jax will be a mature enough market to support going back to 62-65k. If we lose Florida-Georgia because of a capacity reduction, that sucks, but I don't see any other NFL city tailoring multi billion dollar NFL stadium/gameday decisions to a single college football game with no long-term agreement on the books.

On today, yep, Jags still finding creative new ways to beat themselves. Another super winnable game botched by questionable coaching decisions, turnovers, tough breaks from officiating, accuracy issues from Trevor, dropped balls, and defensive struggles. But again, at least it was competitive up until the final seconds. With a little bit more seasoning, this team could be the one sitting at 6-1 after the game.

[thelakelander]

Definitely more competitive.  Definitely finding ways to lose games. Nevertheless, it's all a part of the process. Overall, the on the field product is a vast improvement over previous seasons. In the end, an 8-8 season would be remarkable.

[jaxlongtimer]

Jax should probably be sweating after seeing the deal and price tag for the proposed new Titans stadium.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-11327841/amp/Nashville-NFLs-Titans-announce-plans-replace-23-year-old-stadium-2-1b-dome.html

Cannot possibly imagine our upgrades costing less than $1 billion.

Have said it for years, but I love the 55,000 to 60,000 capacity the Titans are going for. And they don't seem worried about attracting CFP and Super Bowl games. Zero reason to build and maintain a cavernous 70k seat stadium for one FL/GA a year that's not even locked in long term.

Nashville appears to be getting substantial dollars from the state (Tallahassee has made it clear they are out of the stadium funding business - which I actually agree with ) and the Titans plus some concessions from the team regarding obligations by the city for the current stadium. 

One thing in favor of Nashville that Jacksonville just doesn't get... it has a vibrant downtown that tourists from afar actually want to visit in large numbers.  As such, tourist taxes far in excess of what we have to work with will be used to pay off their bonds.  And, with things to do, they are in a much better ongoing position to attract playoff and championship games than the "do-nothing" downtown we have to offer - giving Nashville more avenues for financial payback on their investment. 

Plus, reminiscent of what Orlando did with its convention center, it appears the city will have something to say about the 130 acres around the stadium.  In our case, Khan is taking control of those areas (Metro Park/Shipyards, fair grounds, etc.) so we may not have that as a source of added revenue either.

....A new 1 percent hotel/motel tax, all of in-stadium sales tax and 50 percent of sales taxes from 130 acres around the stadium will pay off the bonds...

Long story short, the lack of long term vision, planning and creative thinking by our city leadership is a lead ball around the future progress of our city.  I don't see any current leadership holding a candle to leaders in these other cities that are leaving us in the dust.

By the way, if you read today's news, the universities are being more non-committal than usual about keeping the Fla.-Ga. game in Jacksonville, especially Georgia:

The University of Florida and the University of Georgia issued a joint statement on Monday that indicated the issue of whether their annual football game will be played in Jacksonville beyond the current contracted cycle...

...."The annual game between our two universities is an important tradition," the statement began. "At this time, both programs are focused on our current seasons. Typically both schools begin conversations regarding future games in the series as the last contracted game nears. We anticipate following that timeline [for 2023]."

However, the statement then went on to lay out other possibilities that took into account conference expansion and the debate on whether to increase the number of SEC games from eight per year to nine.

"When those discussions take place, we will consider a multitude of factors, including tradition, finances, future SEC scheduling models with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma, and what is best for both schools' football programs overall."....

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/sports/college/football/2022/10/24/florida-georgia-officials-release-statement-games-future-jacksonville/10588581002/

[landfall]

Without the Landing and nothing happening with Lot J and Downtown in general there's jack shit for visitors to do. We're going to pay the price of this when the game goes back to Campus.

[marcuscnelson]

It does seem like if there was a time to say "forget it" with FL/GA and take advantage of rebuilding the upper bowl to cut capacity enough so that we don't have big empty sections on camera, this would be it. Might even make it more practical for other events to take place in a more intimate setting. Not sure if pushing ticket prices up makes sense for our market, but ideally it improves things from an image standpoint, even if losing the cocktail party is somewhat of a bruise.

Nate Monroe tweeted about this earlier and there are a number of responses focusing on that 55-60k number. Meanwhile, Curry seems concerned about the possibility of the city looking uncommitted.

[landfall]

Sad damning endictment of the loser mentality in Jax we'd happily give this up. Too small, too weak to have big events.

Sooner Lot J is back on the agenda the better.  Hopefully bigger and better now they can free up the fairgrounds for parking and they could also develop some of the other lots. No one else has stepped up in the last two years since it was voted down.

[Ken_FSU]

Sad damning endictment of the loser mentality in Jax we'd happily give this up. Too small, too weak to have big events.

Florida-Georgia is a great tradition, and I don't think anyone would be happy to give it up. But contractually, there's nothing holding the game here beyond 2023. And, as we've seen with all the crazy conference realignments, it's really hard to predict what's going to happen in the future. TV deals are becoming so enormous for live sports that a $2.5 million payout in 2023 isn't going to mean what it did in previous years.Would LOVE to see Florida-Georgia stay here for another 100 years, but in the absence of anything binding and long-term, it shouldn't even be a consideration as we plan the future of our NFL stadium.

We've now got nearly 30 years of data suggesting that 67,000+ is too large for an NFL stadium in Jacksonville. All these issues that have historically been used against Jacksonville's standing as an NFL market - blackouts, tarps, empty seats, Winn Dixie ticket giveaways, opposing fans - ultimately come back to sizing our NFL stadium to accommodate one annual college football game where most attendees are coming from out of market, rather than sizing our stadium for 8-10 annual, local, Jags games. It's not a knock against Jacksonville or a sign that we've got a loser mentality, just simple economic reality. Many MUCH larger cities have come to the same conclusion - 67,000+ people aren't going to pay NFL ticket prices each week when the at-home experience has become so good.

When you routinely see 10,000 to 15,000 empty seats every Sunday, like we do in Jacksonville, it does nobody any favors. Gives Jax a bad reputation as an NFL market. Hurts the home field advantage. And just creates this self-perpetuating myth that tickets aren't desirable. 55k-57k packs the stadium every Sunday. It creates a waiting list when the team is good, incentivizing people to hang on to season tickets. It creates some genuine scarcity for big game tickets. It keeps opposing fans from flocking to the stadium at $20 a pop.

Anyone who's been to an MLS soccer game in an NFL stadium vs. a soccer-specific stadium sized for the market knows the difference in atmosphere and fun for a crowd of 20,000 in a cavernous stadium vs. the more intimate soccer venue. Ditto baseball, where nearly every team has downsized out of the horrid shared-use stadiums of the 70s and 80s and into more intimate venues.

The Bank would be rocking, and would be one of the hottest tickets in town even with a losing team, if it was a 55k-57k capacity venue designed to create a great gameday experience for a slightly smaller crowd.

Would suck to lose our borrowed Florida-Georgia game because we reduced capacity, but it would suck even more to gimp our owned NFL experience that we're investing billions in because we think we need an annual college football game to be a legitimate city. That's the loser mentality to me.

Sooner Lot J is back on the agenda the better. No one else has stepped up in the last two years since it was voted down.

To be fair, it hasn't exactly been RFP'd in the last two years either. And, even though I actually favored moving forward with Lot J despite the lopsided deal, the Jags have only themselves to blame for Lot J falling through (with an assist to Lenny Curry). It was theirs to lose. Shifting goalposts in terms of renderings, timelines and project details, double-speak about breadbox loans, bullying of City Council members by the mayor, refusal to share pro-forma details, efforts to circumvent the DIA, arrogance and entitlement toward Metro Park, and an ill-timed announcement about moving a second annual game to London destroyed all goodwill toward the project and quickly transformed it from "sure thing" to a close veto.

To their credit, they learned from it, and nearly everything they've done since in terms of Shpyards development has been night and day better.

I do agree though. Lot J needs to come back, in modified form, sooner than later. Would be great if we could phase as much of the Lot J, Stadium, Shipyards, and even MOSH work together as possible.