Football

Paul Posluszny

NFL Tough Guys

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With all the emphasis on speed, technique, culture and whatever else the Jaguars have been working on so far, it won’t be until sometime in late August when the coaching staff and the players start to find out what kind of football team they’re going to be.

Everybody talks about playing fast and giving great effort, but football in the NFL is still played by the guys who have the physical and mental toughness to succeed.

My friend Vic Ketchman, now retired NFL reporter, used to say, “Everybody’s ‘All-Airport’ this time of year. When they walk through the airport, they look great. That doesn’t make them football players.”

Some coaches call them ‘Underwear Practices.” Others refer to it as “running around in your pajamas.” Technically it’s shirts, shorts and helmets for OTA’s and mini-camps where players get acclimated, work on conditioning and learn the playbook. But it’s not until the pads are on that you find out who the football players are.

And after a 1-15 season, the Jaguars need some football players. We don’t know anything about that part of the Jaguars’ makeup. They need a thumper on defense and some tough guys on the field.

“Traditionally it was training camp,” Paul Posluszny, the Jaguars former Pro Bowl linebacker said on how toughness shows itself in the NFL. “You want to know you can rely on somebody when things get hard. When you’re two weeks into training camp, even when guys don’t feel great, they lineup, know what their keys are and do their job. You want to know who you can trust.”

“When things get long and hard and difficult and you’re tired and your body isn’t functioning,” he added. “It’s the guys who get through that you know that’s somebody who has what it takes.”

“How do you define toughness?” Kyle Brady, the former Jaguars Tight End who had a thirteen-year NFL career said this week. “It’s really an intangible. It’s a combination of physical and mostly mental toughness. I’d almost say it’s a ‘settled intensity’ And it’s not always the guys you think. Often, it’s not the “rah-rah” guys. It’s the quiet guys who tend to bring it every day.”

“Everybody at that level has some toughness,” Brady explained. “They needed it to get there. In training camp, coaches will manufacture adversity just to see who can push through.”

Former Jaguars linebacker Lonnie Marts had a reputation as a tough guy in the NFL. Traditionally playing the strong side, when the hole opened, Marts was expected to fill it.

And he did.

“For us, in our era, it was three days after the first padded practice,” Marts, who endured ten NFL training camps explained. “We had two-a-days in pads, and some guys are fired up, some guys are hurting. It doesn’t take long for the soreness to set in. You’re looking for who’s going to step up and who’s going to back down. You see your leaders and your tough guys at that point.”

Can other players see who the tough guys are? Marts, Brady and Posluszny all said you know right away.

“Having that toughness to push through late in the game, in training camp, late in the season, that’s part of being a professional,” said Brady. “And the players know. They see who’s pushing and getting it done and who isn’t.”

“Sometimes when that play needs to be made you know who’s suspect,” Marts added. “They’re not mentally tough. Somethings going to happen where he’s not going to make that play. Everybody knows who you are when you’re ‘that guy’ who looks good but doesn’t make plays.”

Through the thousands of plays they’ve run, whether it’s in practice or the games, every football player remembers the one hit that really got their attention. Even in the NFL, players remember that one play that was different from all the others.

“Jesse Tuggle was an old school guy,” Brady said of the former Falcons linebacker. ” I was just running a simple drag route and he hit me as hard as I can remember. I wasn’t even the primary receiver. He just nailed me. It was a legal hit at the time. They didn’t protect receivers the way they do now. It was a clean hit, but I remember that for sure.”

“I was with the Bills playing against the Browns,” Posluszny recalled. “Jamal Lewis is at tailback. I blitz though the ‘A’ gap, it’s his job to block me and he ducks down like he’s going to cut me. But he explodes from that position and hits me right in the chin with the crown of his helmet. I’ve never changed directions that quickly.”

“I’m chasing Keith Byars to the sideline thinking ‘You’re not going to get to the sideline,” Marts described in vivid detail when asked about the biggest hit he ever took. “And this wide receiver, Mark Ingram (Sr.) was waiting for me. It was like running into a fire hydrant. Marty (Schottenheimer) opened the meeting the next day showing that hit and said, ‘Lonnie, you’re a solid guy.’ I said, ‘I’m glad you think that ‘cause I wanted to come out of the game.’”

Posluszny mentioned two former Jaguars when I asked him the toughest guys he ever played with.

“Roy Miller at nose guard,” Paul said quickly. “He and I worked together. I knew it didn’t matter; he’d take on 20 double teams to protect me. Then he’d take on the 21st with the same fortitude. When Telvin Smith on the field, the score, the temperature, the circumstances, none of that mattered. He just wanted to get the job done. He had the mental toughness to fight through anything.”

Which makes Smith’s fall from grace all that more troubling and disappointing.

“Mo Lewis is the first guy that comes to mind,” Brady said of his memories of his toughest teammates. “He was our captain with the Jets, and he was a great example. He brought it every day, practice, games, he was the toughest player I knew physically and mentally. I saw that early in my career.”

“Hardy Nickerson,” Lonnie said without hesitation. “I’ve never played with anybody tougher than Hardy. The heat, nothing bothered him. He got stronger as the game went on. When he spoke you listened.”

There’s a point in every NFL game, where the game shifts and one team starts to impose their will on the other. Usually, you see it at the end of the third quarter or the beginning of the fourth. That’s not by coincidence. Players can feel when their opponent has had enough.

“That shows up in games, especially later in the year,” Posluszny explained. “Later in games, some hard hitting games, that shows up.”

“You’re not a professional if you can’t do it all year long,” said Marts. “There are a lot of people who want to play this game, but they can’t. They can’t get through the tough parts. Guys say they can do it while they’re in the AC and in meetings. Getting it done in the heat of the moment is a whole different story.”

“You want to set a tone early,” Brady said of how games and seasons progress in the NFL. “And if you do that consistently enough, sometimes you see the effort change on the other side. Even when you’re dominating a guy, and you see his effort change, you help him up but you’re like, ‘Hey, come on. You need to bring your ‘A’ game.”

Brady should know. The Jets teams he was on were 1-28 to start his career. So, staying tough through games and through the season was a challenge.

“That wasn’t any fun,” Brady explained. But I figured I would control what I could control, and I wanted to get it done on the last play the same way I did on the first play.”

“There are levels, (of toughness),” Poz added. “Are there guys that flinch from time to time, yes. It’s few and far between where guys aren’t standing in the hole when they need to be. It stands out on film, and you never want anybody to see that. You’d say, ‘that guy didn’t want it.’”

And if you flinch too often, you’re not in the league very long.

“It’s funny, some guys don’t look the part when you see them in the locker room,” Brady added. “But don’t be fooled by that. Those guys have that toughness, and they show up. Players know.”

“Other players see what’s going on,” added Posluszny.” If you’re going to stay in the league, you’ve got to be a tough guy. Nobody is soft. Because if you show that, it’s deadly on your career.”

NFL Draft 2021

NFL Draft Secrets

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There’s a room down at the stadium that’s highly guarded. It doesn’t contain cash or tickets or merchandise. No, it holds something much more important: Information.
It’s the room that holds the Jaguars draft board. A compilation of the past four years or more of scouting, evaluating, interviewing, discussing, arguing and just plain wondering about the college players eligible in this week’s NFL Draft.

Every team has a secret room. We get a little snippet of video of that room every year after the first round selection is made. A bunch of hand shaking and back slapping, congratulating each other or getting “their guy.”

Access to that room is coveted, everybody wants to be in there. So, despite the number of scouts, personnel people, coaches and administrators employed by each team looking for players from all corners of the earth, the league will limit the number in that room this year to just twenty-four.

There are the privileged few on each team that get to know what names are on that board, which names have been eliminated and who the most coveted player is among the nine-hundred or so the team has looked at leading up to that year’s draft.

And don’t think the secretive nature is overblown. There’s a security guard, ID badges to gain access and even one of those keypads that scrambles the numbers under a hood where you enter the ‘secret code’ to gain entry.

When Shad Khan bought the team to start the 2012 season, he found out how serious they were about keeping their draft board, and even their first pick a secret. Even from the owner.
“I was a new owner, so I didn’t know how it worked,” he explained. “I was curious about the process and who we were considering with the first pick. When I went to the guys I had in charge they were very ‘close to the vest’ even with me. They marched me down to a secure room, locked the door, looked around and opened a notebook for a few seconds to show me a name. I figured I was the owner and I wanted it to be different than that.”

For Khan, that seemed more like paranoia than closely guarded information, so he changed out the decision-makers on the Jaguars after his first year of ownership.

That 2012 class is considered one of the worst in the Jaguars history, headed by Wide Receiver Justin Blackmon with the fifth pick overall. A supremely talented player, Blackmon doubled the Jaguars offensive production when he was on the field, but his off-field issues with marijuana use kept him out of the lineup and eventually and out of the league in about a year and a half.

And as much time, energy, miles traveled, millions of hotel and airline points amassed crisscrossing the country, the draft process is still an inexact science.

There are whiffs and there are surprises on both ends of the spectrum. The Jaguars have had both.

Just last year, they signed running back James Robinson as an undrafted free agent. He excelled in training camp so much it allowed them to move past Leonard Fournette and install Robinson as the starter. In fourteen games he amassed the most yards from scrimmage in NFL history by an undrafted rookie.

How did everybody miss him? Robinson was an All-American on some lists, was the dominant running back in his conference and was well known. Yet, every team over seven rounds passed.

Different boards have different values on players. What their needs are, how a player might fit into their system. It’s all a jigsaw puzzle that each team fills in their own way, with their own process.

Even the Jaguars didn’t have Robinson as a draft pick, and they were only one of two teams to contact and sign him the minute the draft ended.
“Sometimes you’re not right until a few years out and sometimes you’re not right until the guy goes somewhere else because they fit him better or he gets healthier or he just develops,” said one team’s scouting director.

That was the case for the Jaguars in their initial draft. A fourth round pick they made in 1995 didn’t pay off until three years later.

When the Jaguars arrived for the second draft day in 1995, there was one glaring name left on their board from the day before. That year the league conducted rounds one through three on day one. As an expansion team, the Jaguars had two picks per round. They took Tony Boselli with their first overall pick and followed that up in the first round with James Stewart. Brian Demarco and Bryan Schwartz were taken in the second round and Chris Hudson in the third.

“When we walked into the draft room on the second day, there was one name left from day one that hadn’t been picked,” said then Head Coach and General Manager Tom Coughlin. (Although I’m sure Coughlin slept in his office the night before.)

“We got together, and I said, ‘We have this guy graded so much higher than the fourth round, we have to take him,” Coughlin added.

And with that discussion short and sweet, the Jaguars selected Quarterback Rob Johnson from Southern Cal with the first pick of the fourth round, ninety-ninth overall. Considered a well-regarded backup to Mark Brunell, Johnson only played eight games for the Jaguars, including five in 1997 with one start.

But it was that one start, in the opener against Baltimore, where Johnson shined. He returned to the game in the 3rd quarter after a badly sprained ankle knocked him out of the lineup, and led the Jaguars to victory.

On that one game, Johnson’s value skyrocketed, and he was traded to Buffalo the next February for the Bill’s first round pick, ninth overall in 1998. And that pick turned into Fred Taylor.

So, while having some value while he was here, Johnson’s value jumped up exponentially, three years later, when the Jaguars were able to draft one of their best players ever using the pick they acquired for Johnson.

The idea of players rising or falling on a draft board late is a media invention. Teams will have between 125 and 150 names on their draft board and as players are selected those names come down. A player’s evaluation doesn’t jump from one round to another at that point. The mantra: Trust the board.

“I think when you look at the amount of time we’ve spent organizationally from a scouting perspective, the personnel staff, the coaching staff, the amount of time we’ve spent together to build this board, I think it becomes very easy, no different than coaching,” Jaguars General Manager Trent Baalke said this week. “On Sundays, it’s easy to call plays when the preparation’s right. I think the same thing with the draft. I think we’re going to be very prepared, feel very good about where we’re at, so trusting that board, that’s how you make a living. You have to trust it. When you don’t trust it, that’s when you make mistakes.”

“Let the board talk to you,” is the phrase legendary team builder Bill Polian said he adopted during his Hall of Fame career.

“The board you put up in December and after the bowl games in January is the most accurate board,” he added. “And it’s even much more accurate four years later. Why? Because the scouts are grading them as football players. Absent the hype, the combine, the nonsense that flies around in the media. That’s the cleanest board.”

The movie “Draft Day” in 2014 depicted a lot of subterfuge and back-room dealing as the picks came up. Polian says nothing could be further from the truth.

“It’s not that crazy pacing up and down, stock trading atmosphere,” he explained. “Once you close the board, which was sometime last week, let the board speak to you, that’s why you did all this work. Even how the movie depicted the GM’s talking to each other. It’s 180 degrees the other way, almost every conversation ends with, ‘Good luck, have a good day.”

“The only thing accurate about that movie is you do eat a lot of really bad food on draft week,” he added with a laugh.

Completely new to the process, Jaguars Head Coach Urban Meyer admits it’s been a steep, three-moth learning curve, but he’ll have his own way of figuring out how it works.

“I’m a control nut and an organizational nut, so I want to make sure that—I want to know where people are sitting, I want to know what camera, what we’re going to be looking at on the screens,” he said of what will give him a comfort level leading up to the actual draft day process. “At this point, we’ve had a couple dry runs, but we’re going to go in great detail early next week about exactly how it takes place. So, I’ll feel much better after that.”

Baalke calls the process on draft day, “fluid,” knowing things can change in an instant.

“If we’re in a situation at 25 (the Jaguars second pick in the first round) where the board says let’s trade back two or three spots, and that becomes available, that’s an option, you pursue it,” he said.”

Every team knows they’ll have to adjust to surprises and disappointments as the draft unfolds. The Jaguars had that happen in 2019 when Josh Allen was still on the board when they had the seventh pick in the first round. Then General Manager Dave Caldwell said in no scenario they had run was Allen still available at seven, so they took him immediately.

“You try to kind of get a feel for how the board is going to go around the league, kind of work through all the scenarios with potential trades,” Broncos president of football operations John Elway told. ESPN’s Jeff Legwold. “Just make sure you’re ready to adjust and move and feel good as an organization about your evaluations. And in the back of your mind, you kind of know there is no predicting what everybody is going to do — the curveball is coming.”

And despite all of the work, sometimes teams have their own ideas of what else might help.

“Ron Wolf would always let me put something on the draft board that was blessed by the pope,” said Bryan Broaddus, who worked in the scouting departments of three different teams during his career. It was an unusual draft board addition the Hall of Fame executive allowed.

“The item was something small enough it could fit in a plastic bag, but it had a papal blessing. “After the first year we did it, it was just kind of accepted after that. You’ll take all the help you can get, and it went on the top of the board.”

“Never touch the card,” Polian said when I asked if there was anything unusual about his draft rooms. “That was our superstition. When it’s up on the board, don’t touch it. If you within seven or eight picks of a guy you like, don’t mention the guy’s name and don’t ever touch the card!”

Women Kickers In Football

Women Kickers In Football

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It never took long in any conversation with Tom Coughlin about the kicking game for the Jaguars Head Coach to explain something about Mike Hollis.

“He’s not just a kicker,” Coughlin would say, “He’s a football player.”

That says a lot about kickers as outliers on any football team, but also says plenty about the Jaguars placekicker from 1995-2001.

“I’m 5’7” and 180 pounds” Hollis said this week. “So, my size, my weight and my lack of freakish athletic ability necessitated me having a certain technique to compete.”

Hollis held several Jaguars franchise records, was the leading scorer in the NFL in 1997 and selected to the Pro Bowl the same year. For about a year and a half during his eight-year NFL career, Hollis was the most accurate kicker in league history.

For the past fourteen years, Mike has run the ProForm Kicking Academy, tutoring mostly local kickers on the finer points and the technique that results in the ball going through the uprights.

“I didn’t have a goal to play in the NFL,” Hollis recalls. “I just wanted to try and be as good as I could.”

By using his technique, he distills down to two words, “forward momentum,” Hollis was able to compete at the highest level. Some of his students have gone on to college careers and even a shot in the NFL.

This weekend, Mike and several other nationally prominent coaches are holding a kicking camp at Davis Park for a specific group that has recently showed an interest in becoming kickers: Women.

“Naturally women aren’t as strong as men so giving them my form and technique gives them an advantage,” Hollis explained. “Plus, I’ve found women to be better listeners in general.”

“I’ve progressed a lot,” said Ellie Wilhelm, a junior at Bishop Snyder High School who has been the Cardinals kicker for the past two years. “I was originally kicking about 25 yards. I started learning the form for kicking and started training with Mike. I’ve probably gained 20 yards.”

Wilhelm is a three-sport athlete at Snyder, a midfielder and the backup goalkeeper on the soccer team and competes on the track team in the spring. She’s no different than most of Hollis’ other female students with a background in soccer and in interest in football.

“All of the women I’ve coached have come from soccer,” Mike explained. “Parents and peers also have brought football to their attention. I want to teach these girls a way and a different thought process about kicking. I want them to understand the process of getting the best out of them.”

If there is one difference about Ellie, it’s that she loves football.

“I’ve been watching football since I was little with my dad,” she explained. “My gym coach in high school is actually the head football coach. I played some flag in class and he mentioned that I should come play for the school team. I love football.”

Katie Hnida, April Goss and most recently Sarah Fuller at Vanderbilt are women who have kicked and scored in college football and Wilhelm wants to do the same.

“It was exciting to see Sarah Fuller kick this year,” Ellie said of Fuller being the first woman to score a point in a Power 5 game. “She’s the keeper (on the soccer team) and that resonated with me so much. She just went out there and did what she wanted to do.”

“I’d like to kick in college,” Wilhelm admitted. My goal is to play and kick in college. I’d like to earn a spot. I love football and I’d like to be in the NFL.”

Using his technique while building strength and through practice, Hollis believes there are plenty of women who can become effective kickers. And as a father of a daughter and a son, Hollis wants to see women have a chance.

“We want to promote women in sports, It’s a great thing,” Mike said. “There are girls that play soccer and have a knack for kicking, if they don’t feel odd about playing on a boys’ team, most of them say ‘I want to be a kicker, I don’t care what the boys think.’”

“It doesn’t faze me anymore,” Wilhelm said of being the only woman on the field. “There are some girls on the other teams we play. There was one girl who was a linebacker. It’s not crazy anymore, we don’t care. It’s just a sport to me, whether it’s the boys’ team or not.”

Furthering a career in football for women can be difficult. You might remember the Dixie Blues, a local women’s team that plays in the Women’s Football Alliance an organization that bills themselves as the “World’s Largest Premier Women’s League.” They’ll enter their nineteenth season of play in 2021.

Former Arlington Country Day football coach Terry McGriff coaches the North Florida Pumas, part of the Women’s Tackle Football League. McGriff says they have seventeen teams from Washington state to Palm Beach and plan to start playing in May of this year.

“We want good, competitive games,” McGriff said, noting they have about twenty players now and will eventually cap the roster at thirty-five. “These women want to be out there so they’re easier to coach, they ask more questions. They want to know why.”

And while he says teaching women the basics of football is easier because “they don’t have bad habits to break,” McGriff also believes there is a bigger life skill for women learned through football.

“It can be a violent world out there,” he noted. “And this is a way women can not be intimidated by that. They understand how this can be part of their daily life. To be aware of their surroundings and what’s going on.”

But for this weekend at Davis Park (9-1pm today) it’s about kicking and technique, forward momentum and getting the ball through the goal posts.

“There are a lot of physics that go into kicking,” Wilhelm noted. “You have to get swing and technique. I have more confidence.”

Which sounded a lot like her teacher’s philosophy.

“It sounds funny, but I tried to not care where the ball went,” Hollis once told me about going onto the field for a kick. “I was thinking, ‘If my technique is right, the ball is going to go where I want it.’ Once you get that trust in your technique on game day, that’s the greatest feeling.”

For more information about kicking and women in football you can check out ProFormkicking.com, LacesOutFoundation.com, NFPumas.com or dixiebluesfootball.com

Pro Football Hall of Fame

Hall of Fame 2021 Boselli

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This week the Pro Football Hall of Fame will reveal the Class of 2021. They’re hoping to keep it a secret until the NFL Honors show on Saturday night before the Super Bowl but with Hall President David Baker knocking on doors this week giving those selected the good news and making phone calls to those who aren’t in this year’s class, word might leak out.

Ten days ago, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee met on a Zoom call to discuss and vote on this year’s class. This was my twenty-eight year on the committee representing Jacksonville, and the first time we’ve ever met virtually. Usually it’s a day-long meeting the Saturday before the Super Bowl in the host city. This year the call lasted eight hours and forty-seven minutes.

I don’t know who’s in this year’s class as the PFHOF changed the voting procedure to keep the final five selected a secret. By now you’re probably familiar with how it goes.

From the thousands of players who put on an NFL uniform, the hundred or so who are eligible or nominated for the Hall in any given year are culled down in a Selection Committee vote by mail to twenty-five semi-finalists. Those twenty-five are cut again, by vote, to fifteen finalists. The finalists make “the room” where, in a live meeting, the Selection Committee discusses the merits of their career. There’s then a vote to ten, and then down to five. The final five then have to survive an up or down vote again by the full committee. Those receiving eighty percent ‘yes’ votes are selected to the Hall of Fame. This year they didn’t tell us who the final five were. We just voted up or down a second time on the final ten. As it sounds, it’s an arduous process. Maybe the toughest Hall of Fame in all of sports.

There were fifteen ‘Modern Era’ finalists to discuss, players whose career ended less than twenty-five years ago. This year we also talked about a senior candidate, receiver Drew Pearson, a Contributor, scout Bill Nunn from the Steelers and a coach, Tom Flores. They’re in their own separate categories and it would be a surprise if any of those three were denied entrance into the Hall. They also needed eighty percent of an up or down vote from the Selection Committee.

The fifteen Modern Era finalists are vying for only five spots, which makes it very difficult to gain entrance and I can tell you it’s tough on the selectors. Once you get into the room, a player has about an eighty-eight percent chance of eventually getting into the Hall. But deciding who’s essentially not getting in that year is daunting. All are qualified or they wouldn’t have made it through the morass of eligible players and into the final fifteen. I’ll find out along with everybody else who was denied entrance to the Hall this year. And again, it won’t be a good feeling.

Making the decision about which players move forward is a multi-faceted process. If it was just about statistics, you could just send out a spreadsheet and put in the top five. But a player has to have had an impact in his era that exceeds all others at his position. As one selector famously put it, “Could you write the history of the NFL in his era and not include him?”

Which players are on the finalists’ ballot in any given year also has an impact. How many ‘first time eligible’ players are listed on the ballot? And were they good enough to gain entrance in their first year of eligibility?

That ‘first ballot’ moniker has become a thing recently. I’m in the minority I’m sure but I don’t think first ballot is even a thing in the PFHOF. Baseball? Yes. The voting procedure is totally different. Football? No. Nobody ever asks how many years it took to get in. The first ballot idea in football has been pressed by sports networks and social media and has put pressure on the committee to acquiesce. That’s not a secret.

In the past decade, the Selection Committee has admitted forty-per cent of all first ballot nominees. Far more than any other ten year stretch in the history of the Hall since the start of the Modern Era in 1970.

Is Jerry Rice’s gold jacket any shinier than Lynn Swann’s? It is not. Rice was elected in his first year of eligibility, Swann in his fourteenth. I think first ballot players are when the presenter stands up and says, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Joe Montana.” Or “Ladies and Gentlemen, Don Shula.” And sits down. It’s no secret that Peyton Manning is getting in this year in his first year of eligibility. His presentation took twelve seconds. And Charles Woodson looks like a first ballot selectee this year as well.

First-year finalist Calvin Johnson said publicly that if he wasn’t selected in his first year he’d be “insulted.” Nine years in the league, a great nickname in ‘Megatron’, Johnson ended his career voluntarily, citing the wear and tear on his body. I’ve got news for you, anybody with a near ten-year career in the NFL has plenty of wear and tear on his body.

Is Johnson worthy of the Hall of Fame? Absolutely. Does he have to be a first ballot guy? Not really. It’s one of those factors that has to go into the Selectors decision making. If you add Johnson to Manning and Woodson as ‘first ballot’ guys this year that leaves twelve finalists for two spots. If you keep doing that, year after year, deserving players are left behind.

John Lynch was a finalist this year for the eighth time. Alan Faneca was in the final fifteen for the sixth straight year. And the Jaguars Tony Boselli has been ‘in the room’ for five years.

Nobody doubts the greatness of those players or their Hall of Fame credentials but with the committee getting younger and relying more and more on statistics instead of the ‘eye test,’ and putting first-timers in at a record pace, those three are good examples of what can happen.

As the Jacksonville representative it’s been my job for the past five years to present Tony Boselli’s case for induction. Each year the presentation has to be different, building on what the committee already knows about his career. When Tony was first eligible, there were five offensive linemen on the final ballot and they were all presented, in alphabetical order. That put Boselli, starting with a ‘B’ at a disadvantage by always going first. By the time we got through the other four, his career impact was undeservedly diluted. Luckily, the Hall has changed the procedure, randomly pulling players names out of a hat for the order of presentation.

And although Boselli is listed as an Offensive Lineman, he’s a tackle and the only tackle on this year’s ballot. Tackles play a high value position. They’re very different than guards or centers. We don’t consider defensive backs in one lump, a nod to how different safeties and cornerbacks are.

You can’t compare what Boselli did as a player with Faneca’s game. Both were dominant at their position in their era and both are worthy of Hall of Fame status. But what they were asked to do was very different. Faneca was pulling and blocking and handling defensive tackles while Boselli was charged with handling Hall of Famers like Bruce Smith and Derrick Thomas. By himself. Both great, both very different.

The perceived brevity of Boselli’s career has been the only knock on his candidacy for the Hall. Tony played ninety-seven games through seven seasons. Swann, Dwight Stephenson, Jimbo Covert and a host of other members of the Hall had comparable career year numbers. Even an iconic NFL player like Paul Hornung only played one hundred and four regular season games.

Thirteen percent of all players in the Hall played less than one hundred games. Twenty five percent of all Tackles in the Hall played less than a hundred games. Gayle Sayers was always the outlier as a member of the Hall with a short career. Sayers only played sixty-six games in the NFL before a knee injury ended his playing ability. But his greatness wasn’t denied, and he was elected to the Hall in 1977 at thirty-four years old, still the youngest player ever inducted.

Recently, the Selection Committee put Terrell Davis and Kenny Easley in the Hall. Davis played seventy-eight games and Easley eighty-nine. So, length of career isn’t a reason to keep Tony out.

“It’s hard to deny somebody who played nearly a hundred games and is considered one of the top two or three to ever play his position,” one non-Selection Committee scribe said to me last week. There’s really not much debate about the quality of Boselli’s play.

Will Boselli gain entrance to the Hall this year? I really don’t know. It’s a numbers game for Tony, again. Of those five offensive linemen who were on the ballot when he first was a finalist five years ago, two, Kevin Mawae and Steve Hutchinson are in the Hall. Joe Jacoby is in the senior pool. Tony and Faneca remain as finalists. Will they grab one of the two or three available spots for this year? And what about Lynch. Jacksonville’s native son LeRoy Butler has already been told he didn’t make it this year.

You could say Tony played in the ‘Golden Age of Tackles’ in the NFL. Willie Roaf, Jonathan Ogden, Orlando Pace, Walter Jones and Gary Zimmerman were all contemporaries of Boselli. All are in the Hall. And all, in one way or another, have told me Boselli was the best of the bunch. Walter Jones said he wore 71 because Boselli wore 71. Willie Roaf said he checked his game against Boselli’s every week. Even though they weren’t even in the same conference.

I honestly don’t know but I’d call Tony’s chances 50-50 based on the numbers. If the committee thinks Calvin Johnson is a first ballot guy that cuts down the numbers and the chances. We did talk about Tony for over thirty-one minutes last week, third longest of all the candidates.

Based on the current criteria, I believe Boselli is a Hall of Famer. Without statistics, although there are now some metrics for offensive lineman, he’s subject to the eye test. And some of the committee never saw him play. The Jaguars sent out video clips this year to committee members showing Tony’s dominance. And it was a good reminder of just how dominant he was.

They say being selected to the Hall of Fame is a life changing experience. I hope it happens soon for Boselli and I hope it’ll be worth the wait.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Everybody Wins

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Having been in the media for most of my life, and almost all of my professional life (I was a bartender before my first TV job), I’ve lost a lot of confidence in this profession. Between the election, the reporting on the pandemic, lockdowns and everything else, it’s hard to figure out who to believe.

I’ve always been kind of a news junkie, always looking for information to make up my own mind. “News” coverage seems anything but what it supposed to be. Every outlet has an opinion and an agenda and everybody these days, professional reporters and everybody else, has a platform. Social media has given voice to every person with an idea.

Which is why this Lot J situation has me confused. I’m not sure I believe anybody. Not the media, not politicians, pollsters, nor businessmen involved.

I watched as Mayor Lenny Curry, Jaguars Owner Shad Khan and his guy on the ground here, team President Mark Lamping, laid out the scheme with impressive graphics for the whole Lot J plan.

I liked everything about it. It’s vibrant, it’s supposed bring people downtown and start to revitalize that side of the river.

The problem, it seemed, as the plan was fleshed out and scrutinized, was how to pay for it? Who’s making the money and what does the city get for it? Public, private partnerships need to be easy for the public to understand with everything out in the open.

It’s a great looking plan, reminiscent of what happened in New England and other NFL towns near their stadium. A mixed-use spot with entertainment, restaurants, a hotel, apartments and parking garages.

We thought the way downtown would come back to life would start somewhere near the Main Street Bridge. Or somewhere around Hemming Park.

But if it’s Shad’s plan to work on downtown by starting at the stadium and marching west, then so be it. I’m all for hitching our wagon to Shad and seeing where he takes us.

I’m also all for Shad making money. Heck, I’m all for everybody making money. And as Times-Union columnist Mark Woods said earlier this week, having an NFL team and the accouterments that go with it is more valuable than just the dollars it may, or may not contribute to the local economy.

Keeping the Jaguars here is important on a lot of levels.

Mark also pointed out:
“And then there’s the almost comical nature of a franchise that hasn’t won a game since September getting impatient about this. In the two months since the Lot J deal was unveiled, the Jaguars have lost seven games, extending their losing streak to ten.”
It is almost comical. Winning at a 29% clip over the last eight years isn’t any way to build leverage.
What I don’t understand is why all of the cloak and dagger stuff around the whole development? While making a big show about the economic impact and how great this development would be for the city, there were some of the economics involved that, well, just didn’t seem right.

Perhaps the whole deal is on the up and up. Maybe it’s a way the city will continue to prosper and flourish at a new level, Shad will make money, and everybody will be happy. I sure hope that’s the case.

But all along, something just doesn’t feel right. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s that little voice that Magnum used to hear in his head just saying some of the pieces don’t fit. Not enough transparency as Curry made the deal, supposedly on behalf of the city, with Khan and his development group.

This past Thursday the City Council said they didn’t want to push for the Lot J deal for a quick approval. You’ve got to agree with Council President Tommy Hazouri when he said, “If it’s going to take seven to nine years to build this project, what’s another two or three weeks?”

Using a Twitter storm to get his position out, Curry started babbling on about how the city needs to get this deal done, about how we had to decide if we wanted to be an NFL town or not. How we needed a decision by the end of the year and how if we didn’t have one, it would send a clear signal to everybody involved. It all sounded like a bunch of nonsense.

On top of this Lot J deal, Lamping threw out an opening salvo about how the team needed to have stadium improvements in place before signing a lease extension past 2030. I get how negotiations go. The city’s opening position should be, ‘OK, we’ll guarantee stadium improvements when a lease extension is signed.’ After all of that posturing, we all hope, and maybe they do as well, that they’ll meet somewhere near the middle.

And it all needs to be part of a big plan. Lot J, stadium improvements and a new lease all wrapped up in one big, happy deal.

It’ll be a very complicated deal, with tax credits, big loans, long-term payoffs and everybody getting somewhere near what they want.

What never has made sense to me is how these negotiations get played out in public here in Jacksonville. Do we ever hear about the Steelers and Pittsburgh squabbling about a lease extension or stadium improvements? The Chiefs and Kansas City? Chicago and the Bears?

The NFL is a business and good business deals benefit everybody involved. If we’re going to be an NFL city, we’ll have to pony up the money to keep improving the stadium and perhaps at some point, build a new one. That’s the price for playing in that arena.

So, where’s the Jaguars part in all of this? Shad’s ill-advised comments about fans “embracing” the idea of the Jaguars playing two home games in London were met appropriately with a “What?” Luckily, all of that was put on the shelf by the pandemic.

If playing a game in London ensures the financial well-being of the franchise here, that’s fine. Two home games over there won’t cut it. If the NFL wants to see what it’s like to have one team over there for more than one game, the Jaguars can figure out how to play a home game there and stay and play a game as the visitor.

As I’ve said before, oftentimes it feels like the Jaguars are an alien entity operating in our town. When was the last time somebody in management over there went to the Westside or the Northside? That’s where a lot of their ticket-buying fans live and you can learn a lot by hanging out there, talking to people, eating in their restaurants and knowing a little bit about the culture of our city.

Jaguars lobbyist Paul Harden (who has represented me in the past) said this week it was important to Shad to have a deal struck by the end of the year. He cited the changing tax code to “deal fatigue” among the reasons Khan wants an answer.

I can all too well remember the ups and downs of the chase for an NFL team. The times when it seemed dead. The times when Wayne Weaver didn’t see the support he needed and was calling the deal off. The times when some arbitrary deadline was set, only to be moved to see a deal through.

And they got it done.

I’m hoping Harden’s suggestion, that a lot of the issues we know about could be worked out before the council meeting this Tuesday, turns out to be true.

If they all went to the Westside and sat down in Leo’s or sat down in Cotton’s on Main Street and talked to some of the locals there, they’d get a feel for what makes this town tick. Then, on Tuesday they can have an open discussion about how it’s all going to play out.

Something we all can understand.

Something where everybody wins.

Trevor Lawrence

It’s the Quarterback

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There’s always been a discussion about the most important position in sports. It usually comes down to the pitcher in baseball and the quarterback in football. If baseball was only played every four days, pitcher would be the runaway winner in that discussion. A pitcher can control a baseball game from the mound nearly singlehandedly. Individually, it’s the most dominant position in sports.

But from a team standpoint, they’re playing baseball every day. A pitcher can’t throw every day. With football games that count being played once a week, the quarterback is the most important player on the field for both teams.

History bears that out in both professional and college football.

Twenty-one of the last twenty-five Super Bowls have been won by teams with a quarterback who’s either in the Hall of Fame or appears headed there.

Just a quick look back at the College Football Playoff and the National Championship in recent years turns up names like Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Tua Tagoviaola, Jalen Hurts, and Deshaun Watson.

How do you win a football game? Have a quarterback.

Part of the discussion about championship quarterbacks always includes Trent Dilfer and the Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl title in 2000. Dilfer is cited as the only non-elite quarterback, a game manager, who wears a Super Bowl ring. But that’s it. A list of one. You could throw Brad Johnson in there, but in the last twenty-five years, it’s elite quarterbacks who have gotten their team to the title.

To win at football, the quarterback is the lynchpin, often the difference between victory and defeat. That’s why you can’t pass on acquiring that “franchise” quarterback if you’re trying to build a winner at any level.

I asked Sam Huff once about the difference between the Giants and the Colts in their two NFL championship games in ’58 and ’59.

“They had (Johnny) Unitas and we didn’t. End of story,” he deadpanned.

It didn’t sit well with Brett Favre when the Packers drafted Aaron Rodgers in the first round. But it kept Green Bay competitive as Favre’s Hall of Fame career waned. Rodgers wasn’t happy this year when the Packers took Jordan Love in the first round, but Green Bay is already looking to the future.

When that quarterback is there, you can’t pass him up.

The Jaguars opponent this week, Cincinnati, is a good example of making that move. The Bengals had Andy Dalton as their starter for nine years but quickly moved onto Burrow when they had the chance.

But it’s never a lock drafting a quarterback and the Bengals are also a good example of that. They took Akili Smith with the third pick in the 1999 draft and he only played 22 games for Cincinnati. Famously, the Chargers took Ryan Leaf with the second overall pick in 1998, now commonly thought of as the biggest bust of a first round pick ever.

As the game has evolved, the quarterback position has become more important.

There have been twenty-six drafts since the Jaguars started in 1995. In those twenty-six drafts, seventeen quarterbacks were the overall first pick. In the twenty-five years before that, eight quarterbacks were the first pick. And in the twenty-five years before that just six: Terry Baker, Randy Duncan, King Hill, George Shaw, Bobby Garrett and Bill Wade. While Hill and Shaw had extended careers, none of those players are in the Hall of Fame.

Hindsight might be 20-20, but at this point it’s hard not to notice that nine teams passed on Patrick Mahomes and eleven passed on Deshaun Watson in the 2017 draft, including the Jaguars. Despite their interest in Watson, the Jaguars thought they were just one piece away. They stayed with Blake Bortles and took Leonard Fournette with the fourth pick in that draft. It paid off with a trip to the AFC Championship game that year, but then it fell apart quickly.

When Florida, Florida State, Miami and Georgia were regular contenders for the National Championship, quarterbacks were the key.

Steve Spurrier was a quarterback, Bobby Bowden was a quarterback. Both knew the importance of that position from a performance and leadership perspective. Both collected quarterbacks on their roster regardless of who was already there.

“Who’s the quarterback,” was a daily story for the Gators under Spurrier. Steve wasn’t shy recruiting quarterbacks, changing them or rotating guys between snaps. He took Danny Wuerffel out of the Georgia game in ’93 in favor of Terry Dean. Dean, Eric Kresser, Doug Johnson, Noah Brindise, Jesse Palmer and Rex Grossman all made news as quarterbacks under Spurrier. Getting Chris Leak out of North Carolina changed the entire recruiting dynamic at Florida and led them to two National Championships. Tim Tebow won the Heisman wearing the Orange and Blue. Jacoby Brissett, Jeff Driskel, Will Grier and Cam Newton were on the Gators’ roster before a career in the NFL.

Charlie Ward, Chris Weinke and Jameis Winston all won the Heisman Trophy at FSU. Casey Weldon, Peter Tom Willis, Danny Kanell and Christian Ponder all kept the Seminoles competitive. E.J. Manuel was a first round pick out of Tallahassee.

It’s an eye opener to see Jim Kelly, Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde on the same Miami roster in 1982. Mark Richt was also a quarterback on that team, The Hurricanes continued their success with Ken Dorsey, Heisman winner Gino Toretta and Steve Walsh.

At Georgia in the last thirty years Eric Zeier, Quincy Carter, D.J. Shockley, Matt Stafford, Jacob Eason and Jake Fromm all brought success to the Bulldogs.

When did those programs begin to falter? When the quarterback came into question. This might be a weird year in college football but it’s still the quarterback who will make the difference.

Kyle Trask presents as many questions as answers for the Gators. Georgia’s uncertainty at quarterback has called their whole season into question. James Blackman has never been able to establish himself in Tallahassee. Miami’s search for a quarterback at “Quarterback U” has landed on D’Eriq King to lead them out of the college football wilderness.

This year’s contenders for the National Championship revolve around quarterbacks. Trevor Lawrence leads Clemson as the overwhelming favorite to win the title. Alabama’s hopes are pinned on Bolles graduate Mack Jones. Justin Fields makes Ohio State dangerous once they start playing later this month. And even Texas is back in the picture because of Sam Ehlinger.

So learn the lesson. No matter who you have, if the quarterback is there, take him.

Pro Football Hall of Fame 2020

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In my 25 years as the Jacksonville representative on the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee the biggest frustration has been the candidates I’ve had to leave out. Each year, especially when the voting gets down to the final ten, me and the rest of the Selection Committee Members cross off five candidates who are Hall of Fame worthy.

This year the Hall of Fame is planning to induct 20 new members to celebrate the 2020 “Centennial Class.” It’s been a little confusing for fans who are used to the Hall announcing their class on the Saturday before the Super Bowl. That’s normally restricted to five Modern Era selections and three more, a combination of Seniors and Contributors.

A “Blue Ribbon” committee was chosen this year to select fifteen new members divided among ten Seniors, two coaches and three contributors.

“This was the most thorough vetting of candidates in the Hall’s history and it needed to be,” said my fellow Hall of Fame Selector Rick Gosselin. “Our charge was to scour 100 years of professional football and find the most deserving candidates who have slipped through the cracks,”

Gosselin, a respected NFL reporter and football historian was one of the twenty-five people on the Blue Ribbon Committee. Thirteen of those are on the Hall of Fame Selection Committee. Bill Belichick and Hall of Famers John Madden, Gil Brandt, Ron Wolf and Bill Polian were also part of the Blue Ribbon process.

Jacksonville’s Harold Carmichael is on the list of Seniors selected by the Blue Ribbon committee for enshrinement in Canton. His career ended in 1984 so while he was eligible as a Modern Era Candidate for my first 15 years on the Committee, he never made it as a finalist. I, and many other Selection Committee members were baffled by his exclusion.

To try and alleviate a backlog of deserving candidates, the Hall has adjusted the process slightly in the last few years. They’ve added new categories and increased the size of the class trying to keep a player, coach or contributor from “slipping through the cracks.”

Everybody, players, coaches and contributors were in the complete process competing for just five spots in the past. Of the more than one hundred eligible and nominated people on the first ballot each year, getting it down to five meant I left guys I thought were Hall of Famers off my ballot. There just wasn’t enough space.

Quarterbacks and television producers competing against each other with personnel evaluators and head coaches on the same ballot. They’ve given Contributors their own category, alternating with Seniors between two and one eligible candidates each year. Players and coaches are still in the same pool, all competing for five spots.

From the more than a hundred, down to the 25 semi-finalists, that list was pared down to 15 by remote voted by the members (now 48) of the Selection Committee. Those fifteen are then brought in “the room” the Saturday before the Super Bowl for the Selection Committee meeting. We discuss each candidate in detail. If it sounds like a long process, it is.

When I first started on the Committee the meeting started at 7AM, they served a continental breakfast and the announcement was at noon. Now the meeting starts at seven, and there’s a TV show at 8pm. They also serve two full meals.

Gosselin’s charge to “scour the first 100 years of pro football” to find deserving candidates was the mission and they accomplished it. Carmichael was among the ten Seniors selected for induction into Canton. His qualifications have always been there and on this Blue Ribbon committee he also passed the “eye test.”

The “eye test” used to be a bigger factor in the Hall selection process. It’s still part of it but the amount of information available means numbers play a bigger role.

Carmichael is certainly deserving and it was a surprise that he was selected over Drew Pearson. The Raines grad was a second-team selection on the NFL’s All-Decade team of the 1970’s. Pearson was on the first-team.

Over last weekend the Hall decided to publicize the Centennial Class by announcing Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson as new members headed to Canton this year. Somewhat surprising, Tom Flores and Don Coryell, both finalists in the past in the regular selection process were passed over. Johnson’s career was short in Dallas and Miami but he did win two Super Bowls. Flores resume is long including Super Bowl victories. I think Coryell deserves a place in Canton because he changed the game with his “Air Coryell” despite his lack of post-season success.

Selecting Alex Karras might have been controversial in the past because of his suspension in 1963 for his involvement in gambling. Paul Hornung was also suspended that year for the same thing but was elected to the Hall in 1986, his fifteenth year of eligibility. Karras is now in as a part of the Hall thirty-four years later. The difference? Hornung was on Lombardi’s Packers who won championships: Karras played in Detroit where they didn’t win any.

One surprise was the inclusion of former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. Tagliabue was one of three contributors elected despite making it as a finalist four times and not being selected. Discussions about Tagliabue have been long and heated among the Selection Committee. You could call him a polarizing figure among the reporters and players in that room. He is the only contributor candidate ever brought to the full committee who wasn’t voted in since the category was added in 2014.

The induction in Canton this August could have a distinct Jacksonville flair as Leroy Butler and Tony Boselli are both finalists In Miami. We’ll talk about their chances of joining Carmichael in the Hall of Fame next week.

Namath Reflects in All The Way

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Who’d have thought the guy considered the icon of the “Me First” decades of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s is actually most interested in helping others.

“We have to learn from each other’s shortcomings and triumphs,” Joe Namath told me this week from his home in Jupiter.

It’s a line also included in the forward of his latest book, “All the Way: My Life in Four Quarters.” Calling Joe a “reluctant author” the book chronicles the highest highs and the lowest lows of Namath’s very public life. At 76 years old, Namath said he wanted to share some of his life’s experiences.

“Sports taught me a lot of things,” he said when I asked why he decided to write another book, his fourth, in his seventh decade. “It taught me how to deal with life, with people. It taught me humility; we don’t accomplish much on our own, that was one of the major reasons.”

It was one of the few parts of the conversation that focused on sports. Namath was one of the most famous athletes on the planet when he helped engineer the New York Jets to the 1969 World Championship in Super Bowl III. He was a cultural icon. Recently he was voted the most interesting character in the NFL’s first 100 years.

His first book, “I Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow . . .“Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day,” was about football and fun. He says that was easy because his co-writer Dick Schaap made it that way. “It was a first time experience. He didn’t allow it to be tedious. It made sense.”

But writing this book was more about giving people hope than about any on or off the field exploits.

Namath was approached about writing a book on the 50th anniversary of the Jets victory over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts that also corresponded with the centennial year of the league.

“The publisher contacted me and I figured they knew a lot more than me. I wasn’t thinking about it,” he said of the genesis for his latest narrative.

But it didn’t start out well.

“We were stumbling around and the process wasn’t right. I wasn’t happy with what we had done. We changed some things, co-writers. But my daughter Jessica, and my best friend Jimmy Walsh gave me a lot of encouragement. It was tough.”

The result is a unique collection of stories, told by Namath against the backdrop of him watching Super Bowl III on his iPad at home. It’s the first time he’d ever watched the whole game and his memories lead from one story to another. He chronicles the game and certain plays, feeling the same emotions he felt in the Orange Bowl that historic January afternoon. Although it’s separated into four quarters, the book doesn’t feel chronological and it follows no timeline. It’s as if you’re sitting at Joe’s kitchen table and he’s just talking about his rich and full life.

As you read along, you hear the stories in Namath’s distinctive Western Pennsylvania/Alabama voice. And because of that uniqueness, the audio book of “All the Way,” narrated by Joe, has been nominated for a Grammy in the spoken word category. It’s possible Joe will add a Grammy to all of his World Championship, National Championship, MVP and All-Star awards.

“When they asked to record the audio book I told them I’d do it on one condition: That I do it!” he said with a laugh. “I know about the relationships, my brothers, Coach Bryant. It only took a few days actually after we had finished the writing.”

And Namath had an inspiration while recording the audio book of “All the Way.”

“Yogi Berra came to mind,” he explained. “I can see Yogi in Shea Stadium when he was managing there. I was standing on the field with him talking about not to many fans coming to the game. He said, in the way only he could say it, ‘Joe, if they don’t want to come out to the ballpark there’s no way you can stop ‘em.’ That’s how I want to hear it! I want to hear Yogi talk about it! I thought I could do it better than anybody else”.

With his celebrity status and his penchant for helping out, Namath started his outreach with a football camp for kids.

“My teammate, John Dockery came to me with an idea to use the sport of football to teach kids about life. Winston Hill, John and I did a football camp but mainly for kids to learn about life. If it wasn’t for my coaches and mentors in sports, I’d have been in the Air Force. If I couldn’t play sports, that was my plan”

Through four locations and 46-years in New England, the camp was a summer home for thousands of kids 8-18 years old. Boys and girls.

“It started at a ski lodge in Vermont. We didn’t even have a real field! We had such a demand we went co-ed,” Joe mused. “We didn’t know anything about teaching football to girls. But we had some good girl players come through there.”

Throughout the book Namath talks about how alcohol, specifically Scotch, fit into his life. And how he lost control of it. He quit drinking once at the behest of his then-wife, but says their divorce gave him an excuse to start drinking again. He details his nationally televised,” I want to kiss you” debacle on Monday Night Football, his embarrassment and decision to get some help. He’s been sober since 2003. So its no surprise Namath has become an advocate for those who battle addiction.

“I’ve experienced things in the last twenty years, people coming up to me on the street or in airports to say hi and shake hands,” he explained. “And at the end of the conversation they’ll lean in and whisper, ‘I’m a friend of Bill’s’ (identifying themselves as recovering alcoholics). “I always say ‘Speak up! Don’t be ashamed of that!’ We’re creatures of habit. We get addicted to things. We can do something about it. My dad was a cigar and a cigarette smoker most of his life. I saw him quit, cold, one day after he got emphysema. I knew if he could do that, I could do it. Without knowing about substance abuse we can get caught up in it. I wanted to emphasize that in the book, don’t be afraid to reach out and get some help.”

“I enjoy reminiscing but I also enjoy helping,” he continued. “Any of us can reflect on our past, we’re darn lucky to not to have made a bad mistake. I was under the influence of alcohol plenty of times driving and lucky and I didn’t hurt anybody. I believe I had two guardian angels. There wasn’t any skill to that. That was pure luck.”

Recently Namath has lent his name to the Neurological Research Center at Jupiter Medical Center. They’re studying how to treat traumatic brain injuries, specifically though hyperbaric chamber oxygen treatments. Again, Joe wanted to help out after hearing a teammate’s story.

“I was lucky. Our offensive guard, Dave Herman shared the problems he was having at our camp. I saw him deteriorate over four years. He was a guy who was afraid of nothing but he was terrified by what was going on.”

“I know I had some concussions, we didn’t know what that was at the time,” he explained. “You know, get your bell rung, come to the sidelines, go back in the game. I figured I owe it to myself and I owe it to my children to find out about my situation.”

Namath had brain scans done beginning in 2012 when he says the left-rear portion of his brain was just dark on the scan with no blood flow. After over a hundred hyperbaric oxygen chamber treatments, he says current scans show things have changed. “I’ve seen my brain before and after. What we saw initially is not there. The cells are getting blood. It works.”

Namath has pledged to help raise $10 million for neurological research through the Joe Namath Foundation. His foundation also supports children’s charities. He’s helped raise over $33 million for the March of Dimes over the last thirty years.

Two times in the book Namath recounts being alone working on big decisions that changed his life. Once in Central Park following a dispute with the league over his “Bachelor’s III” nightclub ownership and once on the beach in California while playing in Los Angeles for the Rams pondering his football future. While not talking about religion specifically, Joe refers to his spirituality and some clarity he gained in those situations. He told me that hasn’t been uncommon in his life.

“The first time was after my senior season in January of ’65,” he said. “I was driving out of Tuscaloosa, headed to New York. I had that kind of experience. Spirituality, call it what you want but I had that voice in my mind. I was thinking ‘Joe if you ever do anything in your life where you have to look over your shoulder again you’re a damn fool.’ Whether it was taking pop bottles off somebody’s porch as a kid for two cents or something else, I hated that feeling, looking over my shoulder.”

“That time on the beach in California I felt smaller than a grain of sand. It was energy, spirituality. The first time I came off morphine after my knee operations, I was so uncomfortable, I wanted to get out of my own skin. I was going crazy. I was reaching for that button and I heard that voice that said, ‘Joe, calm down, you’re with doctors and nurses in a hospital.’ Reach out for help, don’t be embarrassed.”

Still watching football and cheering for the Jets, Namath says how the game has evolved is “wonderful.”

“It’s so much more efficient,” he said of today’s NFL. “There was a time where we didn’t work as efficiently. Guys used to sell insurance in the morning and then come to practice. The way it’s operated on the field is so much more efficient. They get a chance to work together so much. I watch these guys now and how they use every second.”

And then Joe left me with this:

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” he said “But I’ve had chances. You have a chance to make it right. Don’t get down on yourself.”

Colt Fever 40 Years Ago Was the Start

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There’s a bit of irony this week as the NFL football team from Jacksonville is visiting in the city of Baltimore. That’s because it’s happening nearly 40 years to the day since the NFL owner from Baltimore started threatening to leave town take his team to Jacksonville.

That’s the start of the story that ended with the NFL awarding a franchise here in 1993. The beginning was on August 15, 1979 with “Colt Fever.”

That night in August of ’79, I was mad at Jacksonville

You might know I’m a Baltimore native, born and raised. I still root for the Orioles. I was a Colts fan growing up and when then-owner Robert Irsay visited Jacksonville threatening to move the Colts here, I wasn’t happy.

I was working in Charleston, South Carolina as a sportscaster and I thought Jacksonville and Mayor Jake Godbold were way out of line trying to steal the team from my hometown. I scoffed at the idea on the six o’clock news that night. Little did I know that it was Irsay I should have had the problem with and not Jacksonville or Jake Godbold.

After negotiations with the city of Baltimore to build a new stadium broke down, Irsay started a tour of the country, claiming he was looking for a new home for the Colts.

A local Northside businessman, Doug Peeples, President of the Northside Businessman’s Club, took it upon himself to invite Irsay to Jacksonville. Irsay accepted and planned to spend two or three days here. Everybody knew he was using Jacksonville, Los Angeles and other cities as leverage to get Baltimore to build a new stadium. Jake Godbold didn’t care about the Colts’ owner’s motive. He got involved and put his campaign machine in motion to show Irsay around.

“We had a lot of things planned for Irsay being in town,” Mike Tolbert, the man who ran Godbold’s campaign for mayor and his biographer recalled this week.

“Jake asked me at the final planning meeting for Irsay’s visit, ‘What have we left out?’ and I said, ‘The people who just elected you,’” Tolbert said.

The plan to entertain Irsay in town included a trip to Ponte Vedra, a ride on the St. Johns in yacht, lunch at the River Club and a bunch of other high-end stuff.

“But nothing for the people who were going to buy the tickets if the Colts came here,” Tolbert said. “Everybody who was going to host Irsay said it wouldn’t work. It would be embarrassing. Nobody would show up. They were groaning in the background. But we decided to invite everybody down to the Gator Bowl to let Irsay know, ‘We want the Colts.’”

And with that, Colt Fever was born.

“I was really nervous about it,” Jake Godbold recalled. “I was nervous as I could be. I didn’t know if anybody would show up. Everybody thought maybe three or four hundred people might be there and I’d be really embarrassed.”

But for the promise of a free soda and a hot dog, fifty thousand people showed up on a hot August evening at the Gator Bowl. The soda was donated, so were the hot dogs. Since the stadium’s official vendor wanted nothing to do with Colt Fever, Jake’s friends from his recent Mayoral campaign got together and did the cooking. Another ten thousand couldn’t get in the stadium so they sat in their cars listened to it live on the radio.

“We didn’t think anybody was going to show up. We only had four or five JSO officers there. No ticket takers really,” said Tolbert.

After just five days of planning, Irsay flew into the Gator Bowl in a helicopter, landed at the 50-yard line and greeted the fans that Wednesday evening. There were some speeches made, a bunch of back-slapping and waving to the crowd followed.

When it got dark, they turned the lights out and 50,000 fans lit matches donated by Winn-Dixie and distributed at the gates by the volunteer youth group from the downtown department store May Cohen’s. And a chant of “We want the Colts,” reverberated through the stadium and into downtown.

“There were a lot of tight throats and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house,” Godbold recalled.

“Irsay was a delightful guy, a colorful guy,” he added. “He was a big guy, like a big Teddy bear, always laughing but he had tears in his eyes, he was impressed. I got really choked up.”

While the Gator Bowl hosted two college football games each year and the occasional pro football exhibition, getting it up to NFL standards would be a huge undertaking.

“Irsay put his arm around me as we walked under the stadium and told me, ‘Jake, we’ll have to do something about this place’” Godbold said remembering the reality of renovating the Gator Bowl. “He was a steel guy. He told me we’d have to tear this place down. I knew it would be a long process to get a team to play here.”

Five years later, Irsay snuck out of Baltimore on a snowy night, moving his team to Indianapolis on the promise of a new, modern stadium.

But Jacksonville had made its mark.

“We got more out of him than he got out of us,” Godbold said. “I knew we had done something nobody thought we could do. I couldn’t believe all these people were coming out in the middle of the week. I knew we had done our job and the people had responded.”

Godbold was amazed that the story was picked up nationally and had created a buzz. At a meeting the following week in Washington at the White House to discuss funding for the people mover, Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan wasn’t that interested in talking about the people mover.

“He had been playing tennis, walked in, and got a cold drink,” Godbold said with a laugh. “Then he sat down and said ‘Before I talk to you about a damn thing I want to know how you got 50.000 people in the Gator Bowl the other night.’”

“We didn’t expect Irsay and the Colts to come here, but we showed what we could do,” Tolbert said. “That night lit the fire that turned the town around. Jake had only been in office six weeks. That takes a lot of guts to pull that off.”

“I knew that night if we could hold that spirit, we could accomplish anything, it was very emotional.” Godbold added. “We needed an uplift more than we needed a team. I was more interested in what we could do for the city than getting a team.”

“The tenor in the town and the tone changed,” Tolbert explained. “Anything he could do to put Jacksonville on the stage was his goal. The Tea Men (from the NASL), the Bulls. Fred Bullard probably doesn’t consider Jacksonville for the USFL if Colt Fever didn’t happen.”

And the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars certainly wouldn’t be visiting Baltimore this week.

(Author’s note: A full accounting from the founder of “Colt Fever,” Mike Tolbert ,can be found in Tolbert’s book, “Jake!” available at local booksellers and online.)

USFL Was Real Football

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This week marks the 34th anniversary of the United States Football League’s final game. The Baltimore (previously) Philadelphia Stars defeated the Oakland Invaders at Giants Stadium to win the USFL Championship behind MVP Kelvin Bryant and Head Coach Jim Mora.

The Jacksonville Bulls were part of the USFL in its final two years, 1984 and ’85 as real estate developer Fred Bullard brought the franchise to town. He gave it instant credibility, hiring NFL legend Larry Csonka as his General Manager and young offensive genius Lindy Infante as the Bulls’ Head Coach.

The city had gone through some flirtation with Bob Irsay and the Colts, John Mecom and the Saints and Bill Bidwell with the Cardinals. All three NFL owners used Jacksonville as leverage against their cities. Attendance at Bulls games was solid and it caught the NFL’s attention. Eventually then-Mayor Jake Godbold’s dream of an NFL team was realized eight years later in 1993.

The league’s ups and downs off the field are well documented, including their winning anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL that netted the league three dollars. In retrospect though, among the myriad of leagues that formed to challenge the NFL, the USFL was the most legitimate product on the field as a competitor. The recently defunct AAFL looked like a college all-star game. The XFL’s first iteration was amusing. The WFL of the ‘70’s was spotty. But the USFL was real, professional football.

“Absolutely, 100%,” Bulls receivers coach Buddy Geis said this week from his home in Jacksonville Beach. “Within ten years we’d have played the NFL for a championship.”
“Each team had a core of players who were good enough to play in the NFL,” explained Brian Franco, the Bulls kicker for both seasons. “Just look at the Heisman Trophy winners in the league.”

When the Bulls opened their second season, three Heisman’s lined up behind Brian Sipe in their backfield: Mike Rozier with one and Archie Griffin with two.

“It was real football,” Bulls quarterback Matt Robinson explained. Robinson had been in the NFL for seven years with the Jets, Broncos and Bills when the Bulls signed him for the ’84 season.

Geis was near the beginning of his coaching career when he put together a Jacksonville receiving corps that included Gary Clark, Perry Kemp and Aubrey Matthews.

“Look at the guys just on our roster,” he explained. “Just our receivers. Clark and Aubrey played eleven seasons in the NFL. Gary won two Super Bowls. And Perry Kemp had five years in the league.”

Much of the Bulls coaching staff, including Infante, went to work in the NFL. Lindy was the head coach in Green Bay and Indianapolis. And the talent extended off the field as well. Glenn Greenspan, Tiger Woods’ Director of Communications held the same job for the Bulls in ’84 and ’85.

“The league had talent, no question, real athletes” Greenspan says. “I think the talent in the league is underrated.”

Overall, nearly 800 players from the USFL, about half the league, played in the NFL. Four made it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Jim Kelly, Steve Young, Reggie White and Gary Zimmerman. Hall of Famers Bill Polian, George Allen, Sid Gillman and Marv Levy all worked in the USFL. Sean Landetta and Doug Flutie were the last two players from the USFL to retire in the mid 2000’s.

For the Bulls, quarterbacks Brian Sipe and Matt Robinson were among the players who had NFL experience before joining the USFL. Linebackers Andy Hendel and Vaughn Johnson went right to the NFL when the league folded. Defensive Tackle Keith Millard joined the Vikings right away and was twice an All-Pro and the NFL”s Defensive Player of the Year in 1989.

Geis went on to coach in Green Bay, Indianapolis and Dallas, as well as several college stops after his stint with the Bulls. He worked with Troy Aikman, Calvin Johnson and Sterling Sharpe and says the skill players in the USFL were nearly on par with those he later worked with in the NFL.

“We might have been Triple A at the time,” he explained. “But players like Jim Kelly, Bobby Hebert and even Steve Young were part of the league. We had smaller defensive lineman, but they could run. We would have had to develop more offensive linemen. But the skill players? They were ready.”

Geis’ assertion that the players he coached in the USFL were NFL caliber was put to the test when he brought Matthews and Kemp to Green Bay while coaching the Packers.

“Those guys were better than our 3rd and 4th round draft picks. They stuck and they played,” he explained.

There’s a perception that the league was something akin to the movie “The Replacements” operating outside the normal bounds of professional football. But players in the league said it was nothing like that.

“It’s not like we had kickers walking around the sidelines smoking cigarettes,” Franco mused. Franco joined the Bulls after a successful college career at Penn State and spent time in several NFL training camps after his USFL career. He kicked for Cleveland during the ’87 season.

“Everybody was fighting for a job,” he explained of the atmosphere in the USFL. “It was no different than going to an NFL camp. The way expectations were communicated, the way we practiced. There were only so many jobs and this was a chance to play.”

With 28 teams in the NFL in 1983, there were more good football players than there were roster spots in the league. That’s where the USFL was able to grab guys who could play.

“When you cut a guy at the end of training camp, it’s usually just because you’re not sure,” Geis said of the Bulls approach to acquiring talent. “Those last seven or eight guys you cut, they can play. We signed those guys and they had chip on their shoulder, wanting to prove they could play.”

“Things with the Bulls under Lindy ran just like they would in the NFL: Meetings, practice, all of it,” Robinson remembered. “In Portland they were a little bit looser. They’d been in three cities in three years (Boston and New Orleans before that). We practiced at a middle school. My helmet wouldn’t fit in my locker.”

But when it came to football, Robinson says the USFL brand was anything but substandard.

“The league was ahead of its time when it came to offense. Lindy had the receiver route tree and the quarterback passing options all laid out. Somebody was always open. It’s what everybody in the NFL uses now.”

Odds Against Rookies in the NFL

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Pictures courtesy of the Jacksonville Jaguars/Rick Wilson

There’s a prevailing thought that “all jobs are open” during the offseason in the NFL. There are 90 players on every roster once OTA’s start. Eventually that number gets pared down to the 53 on the team when the season starts. That means when the 32 teams get to opening day in September, over a thousand players currently on NFL rosters will be out of a job.

This weekend’s Jaguars rookie mini-camp highlighted the uphill slog for any player trying to break into the league. The reality is that on average, on the final fifty-three-man roster, six rookies might make the team. Factor in the top three or four draft picks will be given a long leash to prove themselves and that leaves two spots for the 62 rookies and first year players to compete for throughout the summer. Seven draft picks, 21 rookie free agents and 28 workout players are included in that number this weekend.

Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone knows these facts all too well. Coming out of Syracuse in 1986, Marrone was the 164th player picked in the draft, a sixth round selection of the LA Raiders. They cut him before the season. He sat out in ’86, was with the Dolphins a couple of years and they cut him. Signed with the Cowboys and they cut him on the first day of training camp. Picked up by New Orleans in ’89, Marrone had a meeting with Hall of Fame General Manager Jim Finks at the end of the year when Minnesota offered him more money and a chance. And that conversation impacts what he says to players today.

“I have to be honest,” Marrone recalled Finks telling him. “If you’re playing for us, that means someone got hurt. You’re not good enough to be a starter.”

That’s a pretty harsh assessment and Marrone admits he was not happy leaving that meeting. But he leans on that experience evaluating and talking to players.

“I always admired that at least someone told me the truth. I try to do that,” Marrone said after practice with the rookies this week. “I don’t know if I can tell someone in a short period of time that I think they can’t play in this league. But I can tell them that we feel we have better players.”

“It really doesn’t matter why you are sitting here right now or how you got here,” Marrone told the rookies at their meeting Thursday night. “It’s an opportunity and you never want to waste an opportunity to make a good impression. You are going to have opportunities. Take advantage of it and leave the stuff you can’t control out.”

Courtesy of the Jacksonville Jaguars/Rick Wilson

Counting starters and back-ups, draft picks and free agents, the Jaguars have 48 spots “penciled in” of the 53 who will be a part of their quest in 2019. There will be some new faces in new places, but players like Nick Foles, Josh Allen, Chris Conley, Geoff Swaim and Jawaan Taylor will be on the roster come September.

And the chances aren’t unlimited. Once the final cuts are made in August, more than 67 percent of those players will never play in an NFL game. Half of those players released have never played in the league and never will.

What’s amazing is how great the athletes are who will not make this or any other NFL team. The last man on the roster has been a star at every level, a standout in high school and college. If you saw him in a pickup game, you’d think he was so good it was unfair. He has a case full of trophies, MVP awards and Player of the Year accolades. But in the NFL, none of that matters.

One player trying to make a quick impression is former Alabama cornerback Saivion Smith. Smith was invited to the combine, was projected as a third round pick but never heard his name called. He signed as an undrafted rookie free agent with the Jaguars.

“I was disappointed,” he admitted after practice this week. “Everybody dreams of being drafted. But now I have to know the playbook, what I have to do and play fast. That’s all I can do.”

Looking at Smith’s athletic resume he fits the role of “what are you doing here?” Six feet one, 200 pounds, he’s been a star everywhere, a phenomenal athlete. Rated the best cornerback in the country coming out of high school in Tampa, he signed with LSU, played for Mississippi Gulf Coast CC, played a year at Alabama and then declared for the NFL draft. He’s a shutdown corner who can also hit and returns punts and kicks.

He knows the numbers game he’s in but isn’t focused on it.

“I’ve talked with some of the guys I know on the team, Ronnie Harrison, Leonard Fournette,” he explained. “I tried to know something about what goes on here before I got here. I’m spending some extra time with the coaches and guys I know. I’m trying to control the things I can control.”

That’s an overriding theme for players trying to stick with the Jaguars or any team.

“What I try and do is make sure,” Marrone said, recalling his time as a player “I tell them ‘Don’t look around and put into your mind, ‘Oh, this guy is going to be here.’ You try to get them to understand that they are not only competing with the guys in the room, but they are competing with 31 other teams, too.”

Some dreams will be realized in the next few months, others will be crushed. Both Marrone and Smith are aware of how it happens.

“I’m not ever going to be that guy that sits there and stops somebody’s dream,” Marrone said. “The one thing about this game you have to make sure that you are happy with yourself.”

Marrone left the field after playing in the World League for London, turning down a chance to go back to camp with the Raiders to stay at the Coast Guard Academy and start his coaching career.

“I made that decision,” he explained.

“I’m going to play as hard and fast as I can,” Smith said. “The rest is up to the coaches.”

Second Jacksonville Super Bowl? Not Soon

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It was nineteen years between Super Bowls for Atlanta. They hosted Super Bowl XXVIII in 1994, Super Bowl XXXIV in 1999 six years later and then not again until 2019 For Super Bowl LIII. For a major metropolitan city with a diverse population, a solid corporate base and a vibrant social scene, that’s a long time between hosting the NFL’s biggest party. I’m not sure why it took so long for Atlanta to get the Super Bowl back and that question was asked to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at his annual “State of the League” press conference last week.

“As it related to when we are going to come back, as you know they’ve become more competitive for cities to host the Super Bowl, which we think that is great,” Goodell said. “I also believe is that not the city, which is an important city for us, the new stadium is one that everybody is going to marvel at on Sunday.”

For decades, the game was held in warm-weather sites like LA, New Orleans and Miami. But the league has used the game as a reward for owners and places with domed stadiums like Minneapolis and Detroit were included in the process.

A couple of the real reasons were very obvious why the game didn’t return to Atlanta for nearly two decades. It snowed there the week of Super Bowl XXXIV and it was known as the game where Ray Lewis was accused of killing two guys in Buckhead. But back with Super Bowl LIII, Atlanta was the ideal host. The Georgia Congress Center is big enough to land airplanes in let alone host the media center and the NFL Experience. The Omni hotel is attached and had plenty of lounge and meeting space for corporate get-together’s and after- (or during) hours socializing.

But the reason Atlanta got the Super Bowl back is because Arthur Blank, the Falcons owner, wanted it there and they had the new $1.6 billion Mercedes Benz Stadium to show off and host the big game.

And that’s how it works. If an owner wants their city to host the Super Bowl, they get behind the local effort to put together a plan and lobby the other owners to vote for their bid. Miami and Tampa will host the next two Super Bowls, followed by the new NFL stadium in Los Angeles. The NFL owners in the early 2000’s liked then-Jaguars Owner Wayne Weaver and got behind Jacksonville’s bid for the game. Weaver controlled the temporary seats in the south end zone for the game, kind of a “thank you” from his fellow owners.

So will Jacksonville host another Super Bowl? The short answer is yes, but not for a while.

Current Jaguars owner Shad Khan doesn’t see the city hosting the game any time soon. He said in 2016 that hosting a Super Bowl would, “Set up Jacksonville for failure. The requirements now for hotel rooms and some of the other infrastructure amenities we don’t have here so let’s not kid ourselves.” In fact, Shad has more often talked about the league hosting a Super Bowl in London.
It’s a popular national narrative that Jacksonville was the worst Super Bowl host city ever and that we’ll never get another game. First of all, that’s not true on a lot of levels but it makes for a good story line when you can pick on a place you like to pick on anyway, which we all know the national media likes to do.

Remember, we’re an outpost to most of the national commentators. You have to make a trip here. You’re not stopping by Jacksonville on your way anywhere else and for that crowd, we don’t have enough late-night cocktails or strip clubs to suit their taste. None of them make it to the beach or even to the Southside for that matter.

Hall of Famer and Fox commentator Howie Long bashes Jacksonville as the worst Super Bowl city in corporate speeches complaining that we ran out of hot dogs at the game. I don’t know if Howie even eats hot dogs, but a little research would let him know that we had nothing to do with that. The NFL runs the game and makes those kind of decisions. Clearly the New England/Philadelphia crowd at our game liked hotdogs.

A look at the facts of Super Bowl XXXIX here showed that the NFL Owners stayed at the Ritz-Carlton at Amelia and other beachfront resorts. And they made a lot of money. The Host Committee and the city of Jacksonville bent over backwards to make things easy for the league and being mostly a non-union town in a right to work state, the venues and the labor costs were minimal. The Super Bowl in Minneapolis last year pumped an estimated $350-$400 million into the local economy.

If you remember the weather that week, it was our typical Nor’easter, Sunday to Thursday with very “un-Florida” like temps and a decent breeze blowing on the St. Johns. On Thursday at noon, as predicted, the front moved off-shore and the average temperature for the rest of the weekend was 65. And sunny. But that doesn’t fit the narrative so the media, looking for something to talk about for the four days they were here at the beginning of the week, focused on what a terrible time they were having. According to the local host committee, 90% of the people coming to the game that year arrived after noon Thursday. So they had a great, Jacksonville, Florida experience. The weather was great, we closed Bay Street and put on a big party. (Something we should do for Georgia-Florida and the Gate River Run.)

The host committee even treated the visiting media to a try at the 17th green at TPC Sawgrass on Tuesday night followed by a concert by Hootie and the Blowfish in a huge hospitality tent. The whole island green, lake and tee area was lit and it was fun. Complaints about the free, luxury bus right out there from the Hyatt downtown ensued, but it was no different than the bus rides in other host cities like Miami and San Diego.

I even heard one commentator complain on Monday after the game about the bus from the Hyatt to the stadium. “There were people walking to the game holding the bus up,” he told a national radio audience. “I mean; they were holding up traffic!” Which got me thinking about him leaving his free hotel room for a free ride to a game where he had a been given free admittance.

Bringing in the cruise ships to house visitors for the game was a great idea. It worked at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and it worked here. Until the ships had to pull out at 8AM Monday after the game following a night of partying.

“You people in Jacksonville really know how to blow stuff up,” a friend from a national cable network said to me while the post-game fireworks were going off. From my broadcast position atop the parking garage near Berkman’s Place, I was able to see the fireworks every night off the Main Street Bridge and over the river and they were spectacular. My friend was right: we know how to do fireworks.

“You needed better transportation,” one scribe told me that week. I don’t disagree with that. More cabs, more limos, more shuttles would be on the list next time. Uber wasn’t a thing in Jacksonville in 2005.

And another luxury hotel is a must to hosting the game again. The downtown Hyatt, with more than 900 rooms is a great base of operations, but variety makes it better. Indianapolis was lauded for hosting Super Bowl XLI, mainly because everything was tucked into downtown with several large hotels within walking distance providing plenty of gathering spots.

Shad has a plan to build a Four Seasons hotel on the river near where Metropolitan Park is right now, so that’ll be the first step to hosting another Super Bowl. But he has a lot of things he wants to get done before backing another Super Bowl bid by Jacksonville. The Shipyards, the Lot J entertainment district and stadium improvements, including a possible sunshade are all on the list. The first league event Shad would like to bring here is the NFL Draft, with Daily’s Place acting as the hub. That’s more likely than anything else in the near future.

So when will the Super Bowl come back? When Shad decides it’s a good idea, we’ll host the game again. If it was 19 years between games in Atlanta, that puts us at 2024. Probably not by then, but it’ll happen.

Boselli Misses HOF Selection

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No gold jacket for Tony Boselli again this year.

It’s the third year Tony has been among the final fifteen players up for selection to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. For the second straight year, Boselli made the cut to the 10 finalists but not to the final five and was passed over for entrance to Canton.

The Class of 2019 included three first-time eligible players, safety Ed Reed, tight end Tony Gonzales and cornerback Champ Bailey along with cornerback Ty Law and center Kevin Mawae. All deserving of a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but a somewhat surprising class that includes two corners and a center.

Again this year, I thought Boselli was sixth in the committee voting, and I was surprised by the selection of both Law and Mawae. Perhaps there was a bit of New York bias in the voting as can be the case. Hall of Famer John Randle mentioned that as an impediment to Boselli’s stature among the voters. “If Tony had played in New York or Philly, everybody would know who he is,” he said this week.

Just so the Selection Committee doesn’t have to consider positions in the same order each year, the Hall of Fame staff randomly selects where they’ll be discussed during the meeting. Regardless of when the position is discussed during the meeting, the players in each position are slotted in alphabetical order. Which means Tony Boselli is always the first offensive lineman presented and discussed. Although tackles, guards and centers play very different positions, they’re all considered offensive linemen so they’re thrown into the same pool. I don’t think that’s particularly fair and the Hall staff is considering a complete change to that process, discussing each player randomly. Once Tony’s case is presented and the discussion period ends, there’s no chance to defend his candidacy against the other linemen on the ballot. But nonetheless, it’s how they’re discussed right now. Is that a disadvantage for Tony? Hard to say.

The case I presented for Boselli compared the length of his career to the rest of the Hall, (including tackles) outlined his accomplishments, and highlighted the comments from his competitors. Based on the confidentiality agreement with the Hall of Fame, I can’t reveal the pros and cons of the discourse regarding Tony but the give and take among the Selectors was spirited and thorough. I can tell you that the discussion about Tony was nearly the longest of the day among the Modern Era players being considered, over 26 minutes. Only Ty Law’s Q&A period of 27 minutes was longer. (We did talk about Contributor candidate Gil Brandt for more than a half hour.)

There’s no dispute about Boselli’s greatness. The only question ever raised is about his length of service. Why that’s even in the discussion, I don’t know. Two years ago the Selection Committee chose Terrell Davis from the Modern Era eligible players (78 games) and Kenny Easley from the senior pool (89 games) for induction. Boselli played 97 games, 91 in the regular season plus six in the playoffs. About 12% of the players in the Hall played less than 100 games. Twenty-five percent of tackles in the Hall played 105 games or less. So Boselli checks the boxes when it comes to qualifying.

This year it felt like a competition among the four offensive linemen on this year’s ballot. It’s not supposed to be a competition because they’re all great players and all deserving of induction into the Hall. But it’s rare a bunch of players from one position are put into the Hall in the same year.

And with only five spots available, they all can’t get in the same year. The past two years have included six “first-ballot” Hall of Fame players taking up a majority of the available slots. Ray Lewis, Brian Urlacher and Randy Moss were elected in 2018, their first year of eligibility, leaving two slots. This year, Reed, Gonzalez and Bailey did the same. I don’t think “first-ballot” is a thing in football, but a lot of other people do, although it’s a recent phenomenon. Of the “first-ballot” selections to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, forty percent of them have been since the year 2000.

It shouldn’t be about slotting players in the queue or making guys “wait their turn.” It should be about where you see the players who get to the final 15 in the pantheon among the greats of the game. A recent survey among players and coaches chose Boselli as the first among the four linemen on the 2019 ballot but Kevin Mawae was selected, perhaps because he was the only center.

It’s fitting that this year’s annual Selection Committee meeting for the Pro Football Hall of Fame happened on Groundhog Day. For many of the fifteen finalists, it’s the same, year after year. The first Saturday of February they’re in the Super Bowl city, sitting in a hotel suite, waiting for the outcome of the Committee’s deliberations. Will they get the knock on the door and an invitation to football immortality? Or will they answer the phone and hear the message, “Maybe next year?”

I talked with Gary Zimmerman this week, a member of the Hall of Fame Class of 2008 who said, “I feel sorry for those guys who sit there all day waiting for the ‘secret knock.’ My year, I told them no, I went skiing. I figured they’d find me.”

Next year, Troy Polamalu is eligible for the Hall for the first time. He’ll be touted as a lock, taking up one of the five spots available. That might mean 2020 is the right year for Tony. They might even add a class that year to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the NFL. In 2021, Peyton Manning, Charles Woodson and Calvin Johnson will be first year eligible players.

If a player has been a finalist, one of the final 15, twice, he has an 89.2% chance of eventually getting into the Hall. This was Tony’s third straight year as a finalist and I’m confident he’ll be on that list for a fourth year in 2020.

He’ll get in the Hall of Fame. When, based on all of those factors, is anybody’s guess.

The HOF Case for Tony Boselli

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As noted in this column two weeks ago, 2019 is the third consecutive year former Jaguars Tackle Tony Boselli has been named a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

And for the 24th year, I’ll be the Jacksonville representative on the Selection Committee and again I’m charged with presenting the case for Boselli’s credentials to achieve football immortality.

The process starts with a list of the eligible players and coaches being sent to the forty-eight members of the Selection Committee. This year, that list had 102 names at the start. Fifteen of those players have made it as “finalists” and will be discussed by the Committee this Saturday in Atlanta. Only five “Modern Era” players can be inducted each year.

So it’s a tough road to Canton.

In his career, Boselli played 97 games, including six in the playoffs. Two years ago the Selection Committee seemed to put the “length of career” debate to rest by inducting Kenny Easley with 96 games played and Terrell Davis with 78. Thirty-two of the 273 players in the Hall played less than 100 games.

Tony played in what can be called the “Golden Age of Tackles” in the league. His career overlapped fellow tackles Gary Zimmerman, Willie Roaf, Jonathan Ogden, Walter Jones and Orlando Pace. All five of those players have a place in Canton. The next tackle the Committee discusses might be Cleveland’s Joe Thomas.

Boselli was named to the All-Decade first team of the ‘90’s, despite only playing half the decade. Zimmerman was the other first team tackle. Willie Roaf was second team. Every other offensive first-team All Decade player of the ‘90’s has been elected to the Hall.

In his playing days, Roaf said he was always watched film of Boselli. “Even though I had two years on him,” Roaf explained, “he was someone I would watch and gauge my game after.”

Anthony Munoz, considered the best left tackle to ever play the game, called Boselli “One of the best offensive tackles I have observed.”

Gil Brandt, on the ballot this year as a contributor, believes Boselli was the best of all of those tackles in the Hall.

“He’s as good as any tackle, Jim Parker, Anthony Munoz, any guys you’ve ever been around,” Brandt said this week. “You can’t play the position any better. All of those guys. Ogden, Jones, Pace. If they were all sitting there, I’d take Boselli.”

“It’s not guess work, it’s police work,” Brandt said pointing to the statistical comparison of Boselli to other great tackles. “We’re not comparing him to if ands or buts, we’re comparing him to great players. “I’d ask anybody, ‘What didn’t they like about Tony Boselli?’”

Everybody from Boselli’s era agrees that he was Hall of Fame material during his playing career. He passes the eye test. If you saw him play, you knew you were watching a special player

There’s not much debate that Boselli is the best player to ever wear a Jaguars uniform. His teammate and best friend Mark Brunell, who had a 19-year NFL career with five teams, puts Boselli in some rarefied air.

“I wouldn’t say Tony was better than Brett Favre, Reggie White or Drew Brees,” Brunell said, “but those are the guys he’s in the conversation with.”

Even his former on-field opponents are staunch voices for Boselli’s Hall of Fame candidacy.

Jaguars’ fans will remember Boselli waving Hall of Famer Jason Taylor to the other end of the field on national television.

“Boselli beat me down on a Monday night,” Taylor recalls. “An epic beat down. Surprising it didn’t knock me into retirement.”

“Pass rushing is an art, some people don’t understand that,” Hall of Famer John Randle said. “He had versatility of (Gary) Zimmerman and (Walter) Jones. He was really patient, that’s what makes the great ones. The great ones are there and whatever you want to do, they’re just saying ‘I’m going to wait for you to come to me.’”

“I’d go against Walter Jones in practice (in Seattle) and Gary Zimmerman and Randall McDaniel (in Minnesota). They’re so patient. I watched tape of the week before when he went against Bruce Smith. I watched it and Bruce tried to make him move and Tony was such a strong guy he could absorb him. You had to come at him full bore.”

“He had great feet. Like a great dancer. He never got crossed over, he had the versatility of Willie Roaf, he could take you just with his feet.”

“I like how he was old school. First off, he was so big it was like wrestling with a big bear. When you got into him, you see that in the movies, he would just cover you up like a blanket. I had to take off quick and get to that point on the outside shoulder to try to make him do something. If he beat you there, he’d shove you by. It just didn’t work out. If you got there, he’d just adjust his feet and take you on.”

“He had the mindset. You couldn’t acknowledge he got the best of you. He was a quiet talker. You’d see a DB come up to the line and you could tell Tony was talking to him, telling him to get out of there. He’d try to get you out of your game.”

Former Giants quarterback and current CBS broadcaster Phil Simms remembers Tom Coughlin telling him he was going to put Boselli on Derrick Thomas and he’d handle him.

“I thought that was crazy,” Sims said. “But as we broadcast the game the next day, Tony Boselli dominated Derrick Thomas from start to finish. Tony Boselli was as dominating an offensive lineman that I have ever seen.”

As the first pick in Seattle out of FSU, Hall of Famer Walter Jones said he wore 71 specifically because of Boselli.

“I’ve never told anybody this,” Jones said this week while traveling. “But I went in the equipment room and I told them ‘I want to wear 71.’ I wanted to do it right. I told the people in Seattle I wanted to be what Tony was for the Jaguars: That left tackle they built the franchise around. He set the tone for who we wanted to be. Even how he wore the uniform. I wanted to look like that when they took my picture out there as a left tackle. I watched that matchup he had with Bruce Smith. I wanted to be that guy.”

“If Hall of Famers had a vote, I’d vote for him this year,” Jones added. “If I was starting a team, I’d start with Tony. I know the other offensive linemen on the ballot. They were all great players but I’d start with Tony.”

Gary Zimmerman, the other All-Decade tackle of the ‘90’s said Boselli had the special skills necessary to be at the top of the game.

“My career overlapped Tony only two years but I was always impressed with what a great technician he was,” he said. “He had great, what I call, “flowing feet.” He could always get himself back into position. He had that patience that allowed him to absorb whatever was coming at him.”

Zimmerman then laughed at the current process the goes on all day and culminates with a television show in the evening.

“I feel sorry for those guys now, sitting around waiting for the secret knock. I went skiing.”

And John Randle brought up the unspoken part of Tony’s career.

“The market he was in plays a part,” John admitted. “If he was in a different market, if he was in Philly or New York, everybody would know about Tony. He was up there with the best of them.”

With Champ Bailey, Ed Reed and Tony Gonzalez being hailed as first –ballot selections for the Class of 2019 that would leave two open spots this year for 12 remaining candidates. Boselli is one of four offensive linemen among the finalists. If you do get into “the room,” you have about an eight-eight percent chance of eventually getting into the Hall.

So for Tony, like everybody else, it’s a tough road to Canton.

How The Patriots Do It

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In the past eighteen years, the New England Patriots have won sixteen AFC East titles. They haven’t had a losing season. They’ve played in twelve AFC Championship Games including eight in a row from 2011 to 2018—and won eight of them.

How is it that New England has that kind of sustained success that most NFL teams, including the Jaguars, can’t find?

Is it a product of the culture in New England? Bill Belichick? Or is Tom Brady just that good?

We all know the difference between a manager and a leader. A manager pours over schedules and assigns the extra work to their staff. The leader just gets the job done and takes the extra work on themselves. A manager bad-mouths the competition and complains about the past. A leader looks inward for answers and has vision for the future.

That’s how a culture in any organization, including an NFL team gets built.

Do you think Bill Belichick is the first to leave the office every day? Does he worry about the schedule? Say anything about the competition? Dwell on the past?

None of that.

Former Jaguars Fred Taylor and Kyle Brady ended their careers with the Patriots. They both admit the culture in Jacksonville and New England were unique and successful in their own right during their playing careers.

“A high attention to detail,” Brady says he noticed as soon as he got to New England. “Practices were tough. I tell people you were more aware of the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses then they were aware of their own.”

For the Patriots, Taylor says it’s the precision they expect, at all times, from the professional football players in their employ.

“Through precision, and total confidence on game day they’re able to play fast,” he explained this week.

“First time we did 9 on 7, I thought, “What’s this? It’s patty cake, patty cake.’ I was used to real “thud” in that practice period. But it was proper technique, proper pad placement, and proper hand placement. It was a level of precision that everybody understood. They practice that and they’re coached so well to understand the situation during the game.”

Taylor got a real taste of the precision and intensity in New England in his third preseason game with the Patriots.

“We were playing the Redskins and I was the tight end in the formation. I ran a “y hook” on third-and-2 and did a sight read on the SAM linebacker covering me. He was playing outside technique so I made an adjustment that we ran in practice and hooked inside. Tom threw the ball to the outside and it was incomplete. I went to the sideline and he was on me immediately so hard that the QB coach had to get him off me. I sat down on the bench and said to Kevin Faulk, ‘It’s preseason, right?’ And he said, ‘It’s like that here.’”

“Tom later came back and apologized because it was something they discussed in the meeting room the night before with Kevin but not with me. Kevin was a late scratch so I never got the message.”

“It starts with Brady,” Kyle said about his time in New England. “He’s fanatical about winning.”

But it’s not just about the talent at quarterback.

“When I got there they had won three AFC Championships,” the Jaguars tight end said about his 13th, and final year in the NFL with the Patriots. “I expected them to be resting on their laurels. But their work ethic, from the veterans on down was amazing. In the weight room, film study. They have leaders that are dialed into that philosophy.”

But how is it that they can just ramp it up year after year and remain among the elite teams in the league?

“No FA or rookie was going to come in there and change that culture,” Kyle explained. “It was going to change you or you’d be gone. Randy Moss fell into that culture and had unbelievable success. They put his locker right next to Tom’s and it was basically a tutorial every day. He loved it.”

When the Jaguars practiced with the Patriots last year during the preseason in New England, you could see the expectation Patriots players and coaches had of themselves. If there was in incomplete pass during any offensive drill, everybody on that field dropped to the ground and did the number of pushups of the quarterback who threw the pass. Not too many times did they do twelve pushups. But whenever the ball was on the ground, everybody, including Belichick dropped and started doing pushups. If you’re the guy holding the clipboard and the head coach is over there doing pushups, you’re quickly on the ground.

“The intensity part naturally flows,” Fred said about the whole “vibe” around the Patriots. “They have guys who play above the x’s and o’s. Tom is great obviously, a pleasure to share a backfield with him. It flows from Belichick and Tom. Tom is Bill on the field. It’s the perfect situation with both of them. They want to win.”

Both Taylor and Brady agreed that even in winning, the Patriots look forward. Not a lot of celebrating or pats on the back.

“Bill would go over what we did right, then he’d move on,” Fred explained. “They don’t blow you up.”

“This is what we do, we make plays, that’s what expected,” Kyle said of the attitude after wins. “There’s not a lot of verbal praise. But they’d do different things. You’d come in on Monday morning after a win, and you’d walk down the hallway on the way to the locker room by Belichick’s office and they had the big photos on the walls already changed out from yesterday’s win. You’d see yourself scoring or a linebacker making a big hit. I don’t know how they did that but it was pretty cool.”

Playing a nearly perfect game last week against the Chargers; the Patriots put their precision on display. If it was 3rd and 5, the receivers were at least 5 ½ yards downfield. Not 4 ½. They were precise in their planning and their execution.

It’s part of the everyday landscape when reviewing the Patriots success to cite Belichick’s “Do your job!” philosophy. But on the door of their facility it also says, “Ignore the noise.” When it comes to winning football games, nothing outside these doors matters.

Just about any organization can take a lesson from that.

Pro Football Hall the Toughest

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This is my 24th year on the Selection Committee for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  It’ll be the third straight year I’ve presented Tony Boselli’s case as a candidate for induction into Canton.

This year, 102 former players were nominated for the Class of 2019. That list was sent to the 48 members of the selection committee. Those selectors represent the 32 NFL teams, the Pro Football Writers Association, at-large journalists who cover professional football, and two current members of the Hall. The list has grown with NFL expansion as well as the desire of the Hall’s Board of Directors to include more “national” broadcasters and writers who don’t necessarily cover one team.

When I first joined the committee in 1995 there were thirty-two selectors. At the time, pro football coverage was still dominated by the “legacy” writers and broadcasters of the game. Jack Buck, Will McDonough, Edwin Pope, Tom McEwen, John Steadman and Furman Bisher were all regulars. They were a tight knit group who traveled together, drank together and had definite opinions about who was worthy of induction to the Hall.

There wasn’t really a hierarchy, but certain members provided a little more clout than others. It always helped a candidate if they spoke up on their behalf. And almost always sank their candidacy if a negative opinion was offered.

There’s a confidentiality agreement that goes along with being a member of the Selection Committee, so I’m limited as to what I can say about what happens in those meetings. But I can tell you the meetings are thorough and honest.  And whittling the list down to just five inductees each year is very difficult.

Two things were certain in the early years of my membership: As the new guy I’d get lobbied by some other members to be a part of their cause and Jack Buck would always end the meeting with a hilarious, profane joke.

The average age on the committee was 56 years old in the late nineties. It relied on some statistical analysis, but mostly on the “eye” test: Either a guy was a Hall of Famer or he wasn’t.

Now, the committee is younger, more broadly informed about everything that goes along with pro football and while the “eye” test is still a good gauge, statistics have a larger role in a player’s career and his candidacy for the Hall.

From the 102 on the original list this year, the members of the committee were asked to cut that list to 25, and then to 15 via email. In the vernacular of the committee, they get “into the room.” We’ll meet in Atlanta on Super Bowl Saturday to discuss those fifteen finalists as well as the two contributors and the one senior candidate.

The meeting used to start around 7AM and ended at noon because that’s when the press conference was scheduled for the announcement. Over the years the announcement has been pushed back to accommodate the meeting, and television. They used to serve coffee and pastries before we got going. Now the Hall of Fame staff provides two full meals.

Each player is presented to the committee by the media member from the city where he played the majority of his career. The presentations are supposed to last about 5 minutes.

Once the presentations have ended, a vote is taken to cut from 15 to ten, and then from ten to five. Even after going through the gauntlet to get to the final five, those five are subjected to an up or down vote. Eighty percent approval of the committee is necessary for election to the Hall.

I used to sit at the meetings between Furman Bisher of Atlanta, Tom McEwen of Tampa and Edwin Pope of Miami. Furman loved to talk about golf in North Florida, which courses he liked and what PGA TOUR players he had no use for. He joked that he talked about golf since he didn’t have any Falcons to present to the selectors for the Hall.

I can remember Furman making presentations for Deion Sanders and Claude Humphrey as players who spent parts of their career in Atlanta. By contrast, it seemed that Edwin was up and down in every meeting presenting the numerous Miami Dolphins who had made it into the final fifteen.

Boselli has made the first cut to 10 but has been eliminated in the cut to five twice. Sometimes that means a player has the support of a big part of the committee, other times it doesn’t. Sometimes there’s carry-over, sometimes there isn’t.

Will that matter? No prediction here out of respect for the entire process but I do think Boselli belongs in the Hall based on the criteria presented. With fifteen worthy players, including four offensive linemen on the ballot, for only five spots, the competition, like every year, is very tough.

 

 

Social Media a Fact of Life in Pro Sports

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Walk into the Jaguars locker room during the “media availability” time on any given day and there will be a smattering of players arrayed in front of their lockers in various positions of repose with one thing in common: They’re all on their phones. Not talking on their phones, not texting, but looking at their phones, perusing social media.

“Media availability” happens four times a week for about an hour in the middle of the day, between meetings and around lunch. So it might be the only time the players have to check their phones.

While social media has given fans perceived access to their sports heroes, it’s also given players some ownership over a part of their public image and branding.

“My social media is about who I am not about what I have,” said Defensive Lineman Malik Jackson. “I’m fashion forward, so I post some fashion, some things about the team and some stuff about my family. That’s about it. Instagram is visual and written, that’s why I’m on it.”
We used to joke in the sports department about what goes happens on social media. “I woke up this morning thinking maybe Twitter would be nice today,” my colleague Matt used to say. “But then I got on it and.. . . Nope!”
Since becoming the NBA commissioner in 2014, Adam Silver has encouraged the use of social media league wide. So much so that it’s become an indelible part of the league’s culture.

“Those guys in the NBA, they’ve got a lot of time on their hands,” Jaguars Defensive Lineman Abry Jones said regarding what seems like the constant stream of tweets and post coming from NBA players. “Two hours here, two more there. We don’t have that.”

In 2018, the NBA has already been tweeted about more than any other sports league. The league’s official Twitter account has 27 million followers, 3 million more than the NFL’s. On Instagram, the NBA has 31 million followers, more than the NFL, MLB and the NHL combined. In the NBA, there are 33 players with at least 2 million followers on Instagram. In the NFL, there are nine.

But NFL teams are using social media platforms to expand their reach. The Green Bay Packers have more Twitter followers than the entire population of the Green Bay metropolitan area.

Jalen Ramsey is the most active and followed player on the Jaguars roster. Ramsey has nearly a million social media followers, three-quarters of those on Instagram. He’s created some controversy and has experienced plenty of blowback on social media. So much so that he recently tweeted, “I’m gone from here, y’all gone miss me. I ain’t even trippin lol.”

When asked who that was directed at, Ramsey said, ““Whomever. You have something to say, you have some negativity, I guess the fake fans, the fake … Whoever. Whoever.”

While the Lakers’ LeBron James has 44.5 million followers on Instagram, more than the top 12 NFL players on that platform combined, Sixers Guard J.J. Reddick has none. He deleted all of his accounts recently. He believes he was an addict and it was taking away from his real life.

“It’s a dark place,” he told Bleacher Report. “It’s not a healthy place. It’s not real. It’s not a healthy place for ego. It’s just this cycle of anger and validation and tribalism. It’s scary, man.”

“I encourage players to use social to interact with fans and the community,” said Tad Dickman, the Jaguars Director of Public Relations. “If they’re looking for a restaurant, I’d rather them ask fans on Twitter than just go to Yelp looking for a place to eat.”

At the beginning of the season, Dickman, a 29-year old a social media participant himself, conducts a seminar on social media use, gives the players a handbook outlining the do’s and don’ts and how players can use it to their benefit. While the NFL has a broad social media policy, most of the specifics are set team by team.

No game footage can be used and live streaming is prohibited according to NFL policy. For the Jaguars the rules are pretty basic: No pictures or videos that could harm the team. No pictures from the training room or the locker room.

“Just like missing a meeting or being late, violating the rules could involve discipline,” Dickman responded without elaborating when asked if the players could find themselves in trouble posting on social media.

Like any organization with young employees, the Jaguars warn their players about putting out too much information.

“I don’t want people all up in my business,” Jones said, explaining why he limits his social media use to Instagram and even there, not much. “I like to stay in touch with some friends.”

Most Jaguars players have limited their social media to the Instagram platform. And as Jackson alluded to, it seems that everybody on there owns everything and has a fabulous life going on.

“It’s all fake,” fullback Tommy Bohanon, an Instagram participant said with a laugh. “I like to keep up with some friends. I don’t post much, but I scan through it to see what’s going on.”

Bohanon said the negativity on his accounts isn’t an issue. “I don’t care what anybody outside this (locker) room says. They don’t know what’s going on anyway.”

“I’m just on Instagram, I got rid of the rest,” Offensive Lineman Josh Wells explained.

Any trolls?

“Me, no, not me. But I know guys on the team who really get it all over social (media).”

Which is why some players have self-imposed rules.

Famously, James halted his social media posts during the 2015 NBA Playoffs calling it, “Zero Dark Thirty-23” mode.
“No phones, no social media, I don’t have anything,” James said at the time. “There’s too much nonsense out there. Not during this time. This is when I lock in right now, and I don’t need nothing creeping into my mind that don’t need to be there.”
Golden State’s Steph Curry recently stopped his usual ritual of looking at social media at halftime.

“When everybody is watching your game every night, if you let one ounce of negativity or one terrible comment creep in, especially right before a game or at halftime or something, it’s probably not the best bet,” Curry told the Mercury News.
I asked Head Coach Doug Marrone if he’d ever been on social media, he laughed as he headed to practice.
“Never. No Twitter, no Instagram, no Facebook, nothing. When I’m gone from here nobody will know how to find me!”
Probably a generational thing, but for sure, social media is a fact of life sports teams will have to continue to deal with in the future.

Georgia Florida is a Big Deal

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Working in Charleston I got a chance to come to Jacksonville to cover the Gator Bowl in the late ‘70’s a couple of times. After the 1978 game between Clemson and Ohio State (the one where Woody Hayes famously punched Charlie Bauman on the sidelines) I asked an usher on the way out, “What else do you do with this stadium?”

She looked at me like I was from another planet and said, “We have the Florida/Georgia game every year!”

As an out-of-towner I shrugged it off, not knowing the magnitude of the yearly contest. I also didn’t realize that just by saying, “Florida/Georgia” she identified herself as a Gator fan.

So when I moved here, I quickly realized there’s not much agreement across the border about the annual matchup, from how many times they’ve played to even what the game is called. I decided I’d list the current winner first after that, so this year, it’s Georgia/Florida.

There aren’t many games like it, if any. Perhaps Texas/Oklahoma, but that has the state fair going on at the same time so it’s not a fair comparison.

Georgia/Florida is a big deal. We need to make it a bigger deal.

Playing the game at a neutral site is unique, but between Jerry Jones in Dallas and Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, we have some competition when it comes to neutral site attractiveness.

And don’t think the game isn’t on other cities’ radar. Or that the two universities wouldn’t listen to suitors, or even think about keeping it in their own backyards. Their stadiums are plenty big and their fans plenty anxious.

Jacksonville has been the host since 1933 (except for 1994 and ’95 when it went home-and-home because of stadium renovations here). The current contract has a few years left on it so now’s the time to ramp it up and show what we can do. There’s about $14 million in direct spending on that one day in Jacksonville just from the game. The actual economic impact is well over $30 million. For one day. Imagine if we created a three-day festival around the game and really had some fun?

As big as this game is for the city I still don’t think we do enough as the host. It’s one of two days a year (the other being Gate River Run) that people come downtown for an event, some with no intention of going to the game, or running. And when it’s over, we just basically tell them to go home.

Aren’t city leaders always talking about how to bring people downtown?

Gator Bowl Boulevard is already closed to traffic, why not line it with street vendors and live music and make a real festival of the day just like we did when the Super Bowl was here? We ought to invest in some big custom balloons and fly a Gator over one end of the stadium and a Bulldog over the other.

A few years ago the city put up big screens in the parking lots to accommodate the fans who weren’t going to the game. Then-Florida President Bernie Machen nixed the idea saying it promoted drinking. I applaud Machen for the work he did in brining attention to the issue of over-indulgence at the game. But getting rid of the big screens wasn’t the solution. When they didn’t appear the next year all you had was crowds of people jostling for position around all of the little screens already in the parking lot. Bring those big screens back.

With the loosening of some of the alcohol restrictions at NCAA events, selling alcohol in our stadium at Georgia/Florida not only makes sense but it’s coming. It will take away some of the time-honored tradition of how to sneak cocktails into the game (my favorite is the bandoliers of shots strapped to your body that you can buy at liquor stores now. What ingenuity!) But it will also keep fans from chugging anything and everything before they get into the game.

We’ve taken steps to create a safer environment for our guests in town that weekend for the game. The JSO walks a fine line between keeping the peace and understanding what’s going on here and they do a pretty good job of it. The city has created safety zones for fans at the behest of both schools. There’s a better understanding I believe among the people who are going to the game of the pitfalls regarding the over-use of alcohol.

If we’re always talking about taking the next step in the city’s development, why not build on something we already have here?

I know it’s politically incorrect to call the game “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” but that’s what it is. When former Jacksonville Journal Sports Editor Bill Kastelz coined that phrase he knew exactly what he was talking about. And I’ve been to plenty of cocktail parties where everybody had a great time and nobody left drunk. So it is possible.

We need to think bigger. And do it fast. The sirens call of big money from other cities could easily block out the tradition that’s uniquely ours.

Don’t let that happen.

In 1994 and ’95 our stadium was being renovated so the game went to Gainesville and Athens. It was at that ’95 game in Athens; won by the Gators 52-17, that Head Coach Steve Spurrier called a trick play at the end of the game to add insult to injury.

“Calling timeout and running that trick play at the end of the game is the single most unsportsmanlike thing I’ve ever seen,” I told the HBC as he boarded the bus outside Sanford Stadium late that afternoon.

“Lawson (Holland, an assistant on the Florida staff) told me nobody’s ever hung half a hundred on them here so I called timeout,” Steve explained. “And we did.”

“I don’t care,” I said

“Come on Sammy, they’ll get over it,” Steve called over his shoulder as the door closed.

No they haven’t.

Just like some Florida fans still remind everybody about the 1942 game, a 75-0 drubbing at the hands of the ‘Dogs. And the ’68 game when Georgia won 51-0. Or the Mark Richt –inspired end zone dance in 2007, which begat the Urban Meyer timeouts in 2008, and on and on and on.

It’s an unparalleled rivalry. I liked it better when the stadium was split into quadrants but understand the “half and half” nature that was necessary after the stadium was reworked.

Being part of the game, Florida Head Coach Dan Mullen calls it, a “healthy” rivalry.

“A lot of times in college football and college sports there are some rivalries that are not as healthy,” Mullen said regarding what he’s seen in his career. “They’re tough, they’re nasty; they’re a great rivalry, but they can become unhealthy. I think this is a healthy rivalry between the two fan bases.”

But he couldn’t help but fuel the fire on both sides of the border when asked about the matchup at his first SEC media days appearance as the Gators head coach this summer.

“Listen, making it to one SEC Championship Game doesn’t make you a dominant program, you know what I’m saying?” he said referring to Georgia’s appearance in the Atlanta game last year. “I mean, two out of the last three years we’ve still been to the SEC Championship Game. So even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.”

Mullen knows Kirby Smart isn’t creating a “blind squirrel” situation in Athens and I took his comments as evidence that he understands the game.

Should be fun.

Recovery is the Latest in the NFL

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There’s a scene in Godfather II where Vito Corleone is in his dimly lit apartment worried about his son Fredo.  Fredo has pneumonia and is being tended to by his mother and a nursemaid using a glass tumbler with a flame underneath. The thought was it would suck the illness out of his tiny body.  It’s a centuries old routine done by the Chinese, the Greeks and the Italians among others.  I saw my grandmother use that process calling it, “ta koopia” in her island/mountain Greek/English.

Who’d have believed that a modern-day version of that is considered “cutting edge” in the world of sports recovery?

“If after our evaluation you need cupping, we can do that for you,” said Ashley Isleborn who operates the Sports Recovery Annex in San Marco. “Cupping creates a vacuum effect that brings nutrient rich blood into the area.  It promotes healing and increases range of motion in the muscles.”

Watching the Olympics you probably saw local swimmer Caleb Dressel with round bruise marks on his back and shoulder in a pattern.  That’s from cupping.

The Sports Recovery Annex is one of about a half-dozen recovery businesses that have opened in town in the past two years.  They all emulate the tools and services training rooms for professional sports teams have to keep their players in the game.  Blue 32 is run by former Jaguars DB Drayton Florence. Current Jaguars DL Malik Jackson has part ownership in Recovery Zone in Riverside.  Professional golfer Russell Knox helped start Cryotherapy Jax on the Southside.

“We saw a need for a community type athletic training room,” Iselborn added. “We wanted to make the equipment and medical professionals that are available to professional athletes available to the general public.”

Cupping is just one of numerous new-wave tools athletes, from professionals to weekend warriors, are using to recover, recuperate and perhaps extend their careers.

“I do it all,” Jaguars Defensive Lineman Calais Campbell told me after the Patriots game. “Massage, cryotherapy, Normatech, GameReady, dry needling, acupuncture, you name it.  What ever I can do to get ready to play.”

Recent research has shown that active recovery is the next step in getting your body ready to perform again.  You might not recognize any of those product names, but they’re everyday happenings for current NFL players. Teams even have a hyperbaric chamber (the thing Michael Jackson used to sleep in) to promote healing.

Former Jaguar John Jurkovic once said that playing on the defensive line in the NFL is like “being in 42 car wrecks in the same day.” And anybody who’s played football knows the difference of being “in shape” or being “In football shape.”  You know that soreness that comes a few days into practice.  They even have a clinical name for it now, “DOMS.” Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.”

Cryotherapy is a three-minute process, getting into a gas-filled chamber up to your neck that cools down to minus 200 degrees.  Normatech is a full body compression system designed to flush the lactic acid out of your limbs.  GameReady combines compression and cold and can reduce swelling.  Acupuncture has been around for 5,000 years and is part of every NFL team’s recovery regimen.  And dry needling is just what it sounds like.  They insert these small needles into a problem area, hook them up to some electric stimulation and it helps “release” that muscle.

Teams all over professional sports have come a long way in a short time.

Former NFL running back Pete Banaszak laughs about guys smoking in the locker room at halftime in the ‘60’s and “70’s. “Biletnikoff was always walking around looking for a light,” he said.

“You’d do the hot tub/cold tub treatment but basically you were just sore all the time,” he added.

Twenty years later, Jaguars Linebacker Tom McManus was among the early adopters of an active recovery regimen.

“I’d get two massages a week,” he recalled.  “The first a deep tissue that really hurt, and one later to help me get loose. I’d see a chiropractor once a week during the season.  I’d get in a cold tub almost every day. Up to my neck.  That cold down to my bones I liked.”

I was walking into the Jaguars locker room in Stevens Point, Wisconsin during their first training camp when McManus’ teammate, running back Randy Jordan literally climbed into a trashcan full of ice and water.

“Nothing, I hate the cold,” Linebacker Telvin Smith said when I asked him what he does for recovery.  “A couple of massages, that’s about it.”

Quarterback Blake Bortles says he does some but he probably hasn’t given enough of the new tech a chance. He sticks to a routine.  “Massages, hot tub, cold tub, the regular stuff,” he said standing in front of his locker with a few cupping marks on his back.

“I was old school,” Guard A.J. Cann said of his thought process coming out of college.  “I’d just work through it and get back out there.  But some of the guys said ‘you have to invest in this’ meaning your body.  So now I do all of it.  Dry needling? It hurts, but it works.”

In his seventh year in the league, Safety Tashaun Gipson says his age has already caught up with him.  He’s now working on active recovery in a lot of ways.

“I don’t know, since I turned 28 I’ve really started to do some things,” he said. “I used to not even stretch before games.  Guys in Cleveland would make fun of me.  Now, our massage therapist says I get more massages than anybody else. You have to take care of this body.”

Like a lot of players, he’s taking it to a new level.  Shunning old eating habits, getting the proper rest, using the active recovery tools, Gipson says it’s made him a better player.

“I used to have taco Tuesdays, had to have my Chick-fil-a on Wednesday.  I could eat French fries with every meal.  Not anymore.  I’ve hired a chef and they’re making it right.”

Drayton Florence started getting involved in recovery after six years in the NFL.  He started “Blue 32” after seeing enough “Weekend Warriors” trying to stay active. He’s invested in almost everything that’s in an NFL training room, plus a mobile unit.

“You have a lot of gyms popping up all over the place.  People are beating their bodies up,” he said.  “I wanted to give the average Joe a chance for recovery.  A guy like LeBron James spends over  $1.5 million on recovery every year.  There’s a reason he hasn’t missed a game. You can’t compete at a high level without taking care of your body.”

Florence gives free treatments to military veterans on the 22nd of each month, hoping to help with their transition into civilian life.

“We started as a training room for athletes. People thought we were crazy.” Maria Rivera the owner of Cryotherapy Jax said.  “But we’re more spa-like now. About 80% of our clients are people who want to stay active; another 10% are working on pain management.

“Our clients want to stay off medications and are looking for alternative therapies to stay active.”

Aren’t we all?

Football Gambler: A Day in the Life

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As a boss “Dirty Carl” was nearly the ideal kind of guy to run a bar in DC.  Well dressed, older than the staff, he commanded a level of respect because of his age and he knew the business.  He’d sit at the end of the bar, stay out of your way and hand out sage life advice to the bartenders and waitresses.  He’d disappear into his office for hours at a time, but it didn’t seem weird at all.

Because we all knew Carl ran the bar, but he made his money as a bookmaker.

“I’m worried that the FBI is tapping the phones and Carl is walking around here with the Racing Forum hanging out of his back pocket,” the establishment’s owner once lamented well before the dawn of the digital age.

Right on Wisconsin Avenue, the “Pour House Pub” was a popular haunt for local TV reporters and anchors and professional athletes.  So when football season rolled around, “Dirty Carl” was always on the floor, talking to everybody, gathering information.

I remember two rules Carl had about betting football: 1) Only bet the underdog if you think they can win the game and 2) Don’t try and get “whole” by betting the Monday Night game.

For the last 40 years, my fall weekends have been locked down covering football games all over the country.  I loved it, watching the passion of fans, the competition and the excitement and pageantry of the events.  So when my friend Wooly invited me to Las Vegas for the opening weekend of the NFL, I said yes thinking, “This will be something different.”

Watching games through the eyes of a fan is very different than watching games through the eye of a reporter. And both are VERY different than watching the game as a gambler.

Fans paint their faces, wear team colors and yell themselves hoarse during the game.  Reporters are supposed to be dispassionate, watch what happens and ask the questions most fans are wondering about. There’s even a rule posted, “No cheering in the press box.”

Gamblers are looking at numbers. They like the “action.”  Looking for a field goal here, a turnover there, and maybe a bunch of scoring from both teams in the first half to guarantee the “over.”

“Why would you watch the game if you don’t have a bet on it,” my friend Keith has said often.

I found myself last weekend at a sports book in Las Vegas surrounded by guys who had “action” on the games. Most were screaming at the screens arrayed around the front of the room after what seemed to be the most random events.

“That throws the whole line off,” the guy behind me moaned after a missed extra point.  In the first quarter.

After bringing breakfast to my friends at 9:30AM, our version of a “tailgate,” I didn’t leave that room until 6:30 that evening. The cacophony of sound and the visual and mental stimulation was eventually overwhelming.

Looking for some quiet, we went to a nearby restaurant and sat at the bar for dinner.  Of course there was a television there and the Packers/Bears game was showing. We weren’t too interested because we had the Pack, giving seven points, Aaron Rodgers was out of the game and they were already down by 17.  My betting partner and I sat there and watched as Rodgers engineered the greatest comeback of his career, and one of the best in NFL history.  When Green Bay took a 24-23 lead, as a fan, I was very impressed.  As a reporter, I was trying to put it in a historical perspective.  But I forgot, as a gambler, I should have a whole different perspective.

“Good, there’s some time left,” my cohort said as Randall Cobb scored the Packers third TD of the half with just over two minutes left in the game.

“What, you’re a Bears fan now?” I asked sarcastically.

“No stupid,” he scoffed at me. “The Bears will have some plays where Trubisky could do something stupid and we could get a defensive touchdown and a “backdoor” cover,” he explained.

So after watching Rodgers perform one of the great athletic feats in recent memory, my mind switched to rooting for a dumb play by a second year quarterback to grab an extra 200 bucks.

I thought, “This is no way to watch a game!”

But that’s what is happening all around the world with sports betting.  You can get a bet down on just about anything in the UK.  Betting parlors are on every street corner.  Could that be part of the sporting world of the future in the United States?

As the US Supreme Court has ruled that gambling on sports is legal, it’ll be a state-by-state question put to voters and legislatures.  Right now, Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware have legalized sports betting.  In Florida, question three on the November ballot will ask if voters should decide whether gambling should be legalized or the decision should stay with the state lawmakers.

But that doesn’t mean anybody in the forty-seven other states isn’t already betting on games.  Whether it’s an app on your phone or a digital connection to a bookmaker, over $93 billion is estimated to have been bet on college football and the NFL last year, skirting the current laws.

Fantasy giant FanDuel said this week that betting on the NFL in the opening weekend exceeded their projections by 300%.

I enjoyed the weekend with my friends and yes; it was weird not to be at a game on either Saturday or Sunday for the first time in four decades.  But I also found out you have to “stay in the game.”  I liked the camaraderie and the laughs, but fretting whether the Panthers would do something stupid at the end of the game and might not cover or wishing the Vikings would get a late field goal to pad their lead takes some stamina. Not to say It wasn’t fun and I would do it again.

I’m probably not the right personality to be a serious gambler.  I don’t like putting my money on teams I don’t like and I don’t like betting against my favorites.  I guess that’s why every time I was in Las Vegas over the last ten years I put money on the Jaguars to win the Super Bowl.  Which usually brought a laugh from the guys selling me the ticket.

By the way, over the weekend we made thirteen different NFL wagers for a net result of -$14, including the “vig.” Seemed like a lot of work and emotional investment no mater what the total. And I think it’s the first time in my life I didn’t go outside for the entire day.

But the Jaguars made me money.

Adding London games is fine for Jaguars, as a road team

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We haven’t heard much about “the Jaguars are moving” story in the past couple of years. Los Angeles has two teams and a multi-billion dollar stadium being built. But there’s a new, albeit faint drumbeat about more games in London and fewer games in Jacksonville. By now you’ve probably heard what NBC’s Peter King said a couple weeks ago regarding the Jaguars potentially playing four games in London beginning in 2022.

It would be pretty easy for the Jaguars to play more games overseas. But I don’t think fans will accept giving up any more home games here at home.

So that’s not going to happen.

Next year, I think the Jaguars will be playing two games in London, one as the home team and one as the visitor either the week before or the week after.

I’ve said all along the Jaguars would play more than one game overseas. And not all in London. Shad Khan has said he would like to have a game in Germany or in Spain at some point and I think it’s possible by 2022 the Jaguars would have already played in one of those places.

And they’ll play at Wembley whenever they play in England even though the league has a deal to play two games at Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium at White Hart Lane. Shad is buying the national stadium outside of London and his team will always play there. Which means home or away, it’s a moneymaker for the local owner.

If the NFL really wants the Jaguars to have more of a presence in London how about one game as the home team, and a few more as the visitor all played over a three or four-week stay? While that means four games in London, it wouldn’t mean fewer games in Jacksonville.

I’ve been to every game the Jaguars have played in London and you wouldn’t know who was there as the home team or the away team. As the Jaguars have settled in on a schedule and gotten more comfortable with the routine, they’ve taken advantage of being the “home” team for the past few years.

Khan wants to have a base in North America to entertain clients and have meetings outside of a work setting. The Jaguars certainly provide that, both at home and when they play on the road in the States. Shad revamped the owners box here in Jacksonville, expanding it and making it pretty special to help showcase his team.

He’s building a new Riverside Stand at Craven Cottage in London, renovating the hospitality area to bring it up to a standard so he can entertain clients from Europe and beyond at Premier League games.

So from his perspective of using the NFL and the EPL as an adjunct to enhance his businesses, the Jaguars in Jacksonville and Fulham in London perfectly fit the bill.

“The fact we are playing one game a year at Wembley now, that we have other commercial interests in London and throughout the UK, has really made us stronger here in Jacksonville,” Jaguars president Mark Lamping recently told The Guardian newspaper in London. “I think most of our fans understand the role London plays,”

When the league wanted to expand the number of games in London, at first they couldn’t find enough owners willing to go. Now there aren’t enough games to accommodate the owners that want to play there.

Shad was way ahead of the curve, as usual, on this one and he’s gotten the other owners excited about taking their team to the UK.

Talk about the Jaguars playing in London, Germany or Spain doesn’t diminish the name “Jacksonville” in front of “Jaguars.” Au contraire, as the French would say, looking at it from the other side of the equation, it makes us the cool kids on the block.

Improvements around the stadium, the continued planning for a “Lot J” entertainment complex, the development of the Shipyards and a high end, world class hotel on the St. Johns river are pretty good indicators that Khan likes it here.

There’s even an idea floated about putting a giant sunshade over the stadium, like an arch a couple of hundred feet wide stretching over the structure from North to South.
“London strategically is really important to us and it’s really important to Jacksonville that the Jaguars don’t lose our position in London,” Lamping said. “Whenever you can include Jacksonville and London in the same sentence, it’s a good thing.”
“London is the NFL’s international primary focus. It’s a market they believe with appropriate amount of development over time could potentially be a city to host a full-time franchise,” he added. “Whether that ultimately accrues to the Jaguars or another team relocating there.”
That’s the first time I’ve heard anybody associated with the organization ever use “Jaguars” and “relocating” in the same sentence.

Of course, that’s exactly what the rest of the league, media and fans think.

Always kind of a mystery, Jacksonville didn’t have a sports identity outside of the city limits before the Jaguars were awarded. The only thing people knew was that it’s where the tolls were on 95 and it smelled badly. Getting rid of the tolls, cleaning up the air and the arrival of the Jaguars changed all that.

But outside of town we’re still the underdog city that’s always losing it’s team to somewhere, and is a complete afterthought among the league’s media.

If all you did in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh or even New York was go from the airport to the Hyatt, to the stadium and back to the airport, you wouldn’t know much about any city.

And that’s all they do.

They don’t see the beach, or Mandarin, Ortega or explore the St. Johns. Time constraints and just plain laziness are both to blame. I’ve offered to give tours to the guys I know, but have gotten no takers.

All I ever heard was, “You’re not getting a team!” when I’d show up at the owner’s meetings with the Jacksonville contingent. But we partnered with Wayne Weaver, did everything right, and were awarded the 30th NFL franchise.

Thanks to Weaver, who was popular among the ownership as a prospective fraternity brother (and that’s what the owners group is) and Roger Goodell, who was the city’s biggest patron inside the league office, the city that couldn’t, did.

And that didn’t sit well with anybody else. Baltimore, Memphis and St. Louis, where Weaver had a history, couldn’t believe it. And Charlotte did their usual look down their nose at us.

“Don’t worry Charlotte, you’re not Jacksonville” said one columnist in the self-proclaimed “Queen City” the day after we got the team. Charlotte was awarded the 29th franchise a month earlier and couldn’t imagine being put in the same category as swampy tackle box Jacksonville.

Of course Charlotte is so snotty they can’t even call their downtown “Downtown.” They have to call it “Uptown.” And they’re right, they’re not Jacksonville. No beach, hot as blazes in the summer and cold as you-know-what in the winter.

And the fact that we like it here just plain makes people from elsewhere angry. I was raised in Baltimore and my parents always say the attitude in Jacksonville reminds them of “Charm City.”

In Baltimore they don’t want to be D.C. or Philly or certainly not New York. In Jacksonville we don’t want to be Atlanta, or Miami or Tampa and certainly not Orlando.

We’re perfectly comfortable in our own skin. Winning season or losing season, we’re pretty happy with our team, who we are, our friends and the lifestyle.

Everybody can come visit and we’ll even show them around. And they can even move here. Just don’t tell us how fabulous everywhere else is now.

We’re not listening.

Coughlin culture still permeates Jaguars

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As the Jaguars gathered this week in Year 2 of the Coughlin/Marrone era, expectations are high. While quick turnarounds are common in the NFL, the Jaguars’ “worst to first” in 2017 seemed to come out of nowhere.

Can a management and coaching change make that much difference? There are a lot of moving parts that should get credit for where the Jaguars got last year, but no question the tone set from the “Win Lunch!” introduction of Tom Coughlin as vice president of football operations had a lot to do with it.

“Do you think you’ll hire somebody established or make your own star?” I asked my source in the Jaguars organization late in 1993. The team had quickly begun their search for their first head coach shortly after being named the 30th franchise in the NFL.

“I think we’ll make our own star,” was his quick response.

“Then you should hire Tom Coughlin,” I said.

Only Joke In The Hall Is TO

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I didn’t want to write this article about Terrell Owens snubbing the Pro Football Hall of Fame because it only feeds his problematic (maybe clinical) need for attention. But not going to the HOF induction is unprecedented, and fans, the Hall and even Owen’s supporters deserve better.

Upon being notified by Owens last month, the Hall took the high road.

“We are disappointed but will respect Terrell’s decision not to participate in the Enshrinement,” Hall-of-Fame president and CEO David Baker said.

This week the Hall said they’d basically ignore Owens during the Enshrinement weekend. HOF executive director Joe Horrigan said, “The focus is on the guys who are here.”

You hear that from coaches all the time about players who are holding out. The Hall is following the same procedure. They’ll mail his gold jacket on Saturday morning after the rest of the class gets their coats at the Gold Jacket Dinner Friday night. He won’t be mentioned that night or during the ceremony. But any time the class is announced as a group, he’ll be included.

And that all sounds about right.

Owens gave no real reason as to why he’s not going to his own induction. He didn’t show up with the rest of the Class of 2018 at the Super Bowl this year, so you figured something was up. He was vocal about the process of selection, calling it “a joke” when he wasn’t selected in his first or second year of eligibility.

For some context, you know the names, John Mackey, Mike Ditka, Carl Eller, Jack Youngblood, Jerry Kramer and Kevin Greene? All are Hall of Famers, all waited at least 12 years before they were selected and inducted into the Hall.

From a statistical standpoint, Owens is number two in almost every receiving category and made enough great plays to merit consideration and eventually selection to the Hall. But as I’ve said many times, if we call football “the ultimate team game” doesn’t what kind of teammate you are count?

As selectors we’re given very specific instructions on what to consider when discussing a Hall of Fame candidate. “On the field” is generally the guideline, but does that only mean between the lines on Sunday? What about practice and the locker room? Those count as well. If it’s just about the numbers, it would just easy to add them up and make a list every year.

But it’s not.

In that model Gale Sayers and Lynn Swann would have never sniffed induction. They don’t have the numbers. But they pass the “eye” test. When you watched them play, you knew there was something special about them, something that made them the best of the best. Former Jaguars tackle Tony Boselli falls into that category in my opinion. He doesn’t have the numbers but watching him play you knew you were seeing something extraordinary.

So getting “into the room” is a process that distills a large pool of eligible players, coaches and contributors down to just 15 to be discussed by the committee at our annual meeting. As the Jacksonville representative on the committee, there are confidentiality requirements regarding what I can reveal about the meeting but suffice to say, the opinions are spirited, pointed, well researched and sometimes contentious but they’re honest and authentic. Nothing phony gets into the discussion. Too many smart people in the room.

But here’s the thing: Owens in the Hall.

His enshrinement is no longer in question. Owens received the required number of votes on that Saturday in Minnesota and he’s going to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I don’t care what the reason was he didn’t get in during his first two years of eligibility nor do I can how he got enough votes this year.

He’s in.

He won’t have a special section, or a different place for his bust. He’ll be lined up with the rest of the 318 who have gained immortality in Canton. No mention of any of the negatives that have followed in his career, no asterisk saying he was selected in his 3rd year of eligibility, just a place among the select few who are considered the greatest in pro football history.

Once that announcement is made on the Saturday night before the Super Bowl, the selection process is over. As selectors, we don’t find out who gets into the Hall in each class until everybody else does. We vote at the end of the meeting and we leave. When the announcement is made, that’s when we find out.

There’s a big push these days for players to be “first ballot” selectees. That might be a thing in baseball with many more ballots and a very different process. Nobody ever asks guys in the Hall of Fame if you were a “first-ballot” or second or third or whatever.

You’re a Hall of Famer. Period.

And once that year’s class is named, I can tell you as a member of the Selection Committee, it’s over. The Committee moves on. The process is very serious and very difficult.

One thing it is not is “a joke.”

So I’m not sure what Terrell Owens is trying to accomplish by not attending the ceremony in Canton. If he thinks it’s a snub that will somehow “show up’ the Hall and the selectors for not honoring him sooner he’s sorely mistaken.

We don’t care. It’s over.

Hopefully my friends who have been Owens apologists over the years will stop telling me what a great guy he is.

He’s not. It’s that simple. Not anybody I want to be associated with anyway.

He says he’ll have his own celebration at his alma mater, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, on Saturday, August 4th a few hours before the ceremony starts in Canton. Not on a different weekend, not on a different day, just another attention grabbing stunt by a guy who has no concept of team.

Good.

Don’t invite me.

Career Transition Happens Fast, And Every Day

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Maybe you’ve heard I had a dramatic change in my employment status recently. It can be quite a shock if you’re not prepared, but you make of it what you want. No matter what career you have, you’re always looking forward to the next thing, the next accomplishment. When you’re suddenly not in it any longer, it changes your routine, tightens your social circle and, despite it being a cliche, you learn who your real friends are very quickly.

So it got me thinking about how quickly a professional athlete goes from celebrity stardom, fame and in some cases fortune, to displaced back into “civilian” life. It can be a harsh reality for those guys who have played sports their entire career. If you made it to the professional level, regardless of the sport, your athletic talent made you something special starting in elementary school. You’ve been celebrated and in some cases coddled to maximize your performance most of your life.

Then all of the sudden, it’s gone.

Whether they had it taken from them or they gave it up on their own, the reaction has been the same: They didn’t want it to end.

So what happens when somebody comes by your locker, (in the NFL he’s called “The Turk”) and says, “Coach wants to see you. And bring your playbook.”

“It’s a combination of shock, disbelief and fear,” former Georgia, NFL and USFL quarterback Matt Robinson said. “What does my future hold? Why does he think I’m not good enough for this job? What have I done differently than when I made teams?”

Broncos Head Coach Red Miller made a blockbuster trade with the Jets to acquire Robinson giving up a first and second round pick and another quarterback, Craig Penrose to get Matt as his starter. A year and a half later, a new Head Coach, Dan Reeves called Matt in the office and said, “I’ve never seen a guy so good one day and so bad the next. So I’m going in a different direction.”

Robinson laughed telling me that story saying, “Although it’s the truth it doesn’t make it any less painful this many years later.”

“Sometimes it’s a personality conflict with a coach or a teammate who has more value to the organization. It’s not always about how good you are. Sometimes it’s about money. I was anxious to get into the business world so the transition wasn’t traumatic for me. I had a longer career than I expected.”

Robinson is active in the NFL Players Association; helping recently “retired” players with their move out of the game. The NFLPA and the NFL through their Legends community recognized the need for a real transition plan for most players.

“I don’t think anybody believes it the first time they’re cut,” Robinson added. “It takes three or four times early in a career to come to that reality. Veterans around eight or nine years in the league start to look for “The Turk,” knowing their day is coming soon.”

It’s coming, no matter what. It’s just a matter of time. If he’s smart with his money, a player could be set for life. The reality is a Sports Illustrated study showed 78% of all players in the NFL are bankrupt or in financial distress within two years of leaving the league. NFL Legends is trying to change that statistic, creating programs for continuing education, preparing players for jobs and life after football. Players have been part of a community in the locker room their whole lives, and suddenly they’re out of it.

“This ends,” I told former Jaguars quarterback Mark Brunell in the late ’90’s once in the locker room when he was a player here. I thought he “big timed” me and blew me off during an interview early in his career. He kind of rolled his eyes and walked off. Years later when his playing career ended, we ended up working together on several projects and laughed about that conversation.

“You’re right. It does end. And quickly,” he said with a chuckle.

Brunell played 19 years in the NFL but still wasn’t ready for it to be over. He kept himself in shape, ran, threw and did whatever that summer, waiting for the call for his 20th year.

It never came.

“It takes a while to realize that it’s over,” he told me. Brunell has stayed close to the game through his work with NFL Legends, and as the Head Coach at Episcopal. “I’ve been benched, traded and cut,” he said. “I’ll be alright.”

Other guys don’t adapt as well. Michelle McManamon is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Jacksonville based “Operation New Uniform.” They mostly work with veterans transitioning out of military service into the civilian world. Recently though they’ve included athletes whose careers have ended and are looking to reconnect with reality.

“Whether it’s voluntary or involuntary, when transitioning out of the military, professional sport, or a business, our roles sometimes get confused with our identity. McManamon explained. “The quicker we understand that our roles don’t identify who we are and that it is our identity; self-image, self-esteem, self-concept, and self-worth that make up our being, the smoother the transition will be.”

Athletes are accustomed to an interview being somewhere on the field, usually starting with a 40-yard dash. Stepping into the real world requires some adjustment and new skills.

“We teach our clients the importance of asking high impact questions in interviews,” McManamon added. “This gives the interviewee the ability to maintain control and gain confidence throughout the interview process.”

“You spend every minute during the week trying to make yourself better on Friday for high school, Saturday for college or Sunday for the pros,” former Jaguars linebacker Lonnie Marts explained. “Then you don’t have that, and you’re thinking ‘OK, I’ll get back involved with my friends and family.’ Only to find out they also have lives of their own. You just didn’t notice.”

Martz has stayed close to the game as the Athletic Director and Head Coach at Harvest Community School. “Hey you need a job,” Lonnie quoted his wife saying with a laugh.

“I knew it was over when my agent called and said, “Nobody’s interested after your last workouts. It might be time to hang ’em up.”

“It’s kind of a fixed process,” Martz believes. “They want to slide the older guys out regardless of their talent. They tell you, “We don’t want you, and it’d be better if you went without a fight.”

It’s rare to see a Paul Posluzsny or Rashean Mathis walk away from their career as an athlete with some juice left.

“In my mind I was prepared mentally to stop playing,” Rashean told me. “I always told myself I was OK if I had to stop playing because of injury or whatever. I know that sounds counterproductive and not very positive but by saying that I was a little better in getting out.”

And even though he felt like he left on his own terms, the reaction of his mind and body somewhat surprised Rashean.

“Even when I stepped out, and I knew I was doing it, I was at a crossroads thinking, “What do I do next? What is my career move? Do I jump into something right away? Turn down coaching? A lot of stuff comes at you quickly and it takes time to sort it out. Your mind and your body has to figure it out at the same time.”

“I couldn’t look Telvin (Smith) or Myles (Jack) in the eye if I was a step slow and didn’t make a play,” Paul Posluzsny said at his farewell press conference. Paul knew he could still play, but he wanted something different.

“I don’t’ know,” he added when pressed. “Graduate school, something in aviation (he’s a pilot). When asked if coaching could be in his future he paused and said, “It’s something I wouldn’t not rule out.”

Former Major League Catcher Rick Wilkens said somewhat tongue-in-cheek, “It happened more often than I’d like to remember,” about being told he wasn’t in a team’s plans. “It bothers you a little less the older you get. I’m an old fashioned guy, being an organizational player. So when it first happened with the Cubs it was a shock. I had invested a lot in the community and the people there.”

Wilkens spent time with eight different teams during an 11-year Major League career. As a left-handed hitting catcher, he was a pretty valuable commodity. At one point Rick was one of only six catchers in MLB history to hit .300 and 30 home runs in the same season. He did that with the Cubs early in his career so being traded from Chicago had his head spinning.

“Nobody wants to hear ‘We’ve traded you to the Houston Astros'” Wilkens said. “Nothing against the Astros but you go through the whole spectrum of emotions. I got pulled off the field during a game and the manger Jim Riggleman said, “Rick, I don’t know what’s going on but I’ve been told to take you off the field. Go in the clubhouse.”

“I was surprised, shocked, in denial and then you get mad. I was trying to play hurt, so I was pretty agitated. But it’s part of the game. As you get older you get a little smarter and your understanding gets a little deeper.”

And despite the wisdom that veteran status gives players, and his deeper understanding of the game, Wilkens wasn’t ready to end his career when he stopped playing.

“My last full season (w/ San Diego) I felt like I still had a lot to offer the game. I was brought up that if you put up good numbers and caught and played the game how you’re supposed to play it you’d be able to stay in the game. I played independent league ball thinking I might get picked up but it didn’t happen and I saw the writing on the wall.” The evolution of the game kind of forced me out.”

Even success on the field didn’t soften the blow for Brett Myers. While they didn’t yank him off the field, after the 2009 World Series with the Phillies, they called Myers into the clubhouse office while he was cleaning out his locker to tell him they weren’t brining him back next year.

“I felt like I was slapped in the face,” Myers recalled. “I busted my butt since I was 18 years old for you, so 12 years’ later you just said ‘beat it?’ You’d think they’d have some loyalty, but it is a business. I told them when I left, ‘You’ll never win a World Series without me.’ I was more bitter than thinking it through, but they haven’t. I wanted to finish my career in Philly. These days a lot of front office execs are basically running fantasy baseball with guys careers.”

A 12-year career with four teams ended in Cleveland for Myers. The Indians signed him and kept Corey Kluber in the minors. When Myers got hurt mid-year, they brought Kluber up and he flourished. Brett talked with him at the end of the season in Cleveland (they both lived in Jacksonville in the off-season) and explained to him how good he was. Kluber won the Cy Young the next year.

“That’s part of your job late in your career, to help the young kids come up. Take them under your wing. I don’t want any credit but I just hope some of them said ‘He gave me some good advice.'”

So is Myers happy at this point how his career played out?

“Over the year’s I’m more satisfied, but I also realize when you can’t help a team anymore and you should just pack up and go home. I’m still frustrated how my career was jockeyed around and how it might have been different. I took the ball even when I was hurt. I just told them ‘Give me the ball.'”

“I was always musically inclined so I’ve always dabbled in music a bit,” he said of his post-baseball life. “That’s really helped. The adrenaline of getting on stage is like playing. And staying here was important to me. This is my home.”

So if “The Turk” shows up at your cubicle one day just know that all of these guys picked North Florida as their home after their athletic careers ended, voluntary or otherwise. And they’re all doing well.

(Author’s note: I just wanted to say thanks to everybody who wrote, emailed, texted, called and stopped me on the street to offer their support in my own “transition.” You’ve been very kind and I appreciate it.)

No TO, We Don’t Care

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It’s rare to sit down and write an article you don’t want to write. I didn’t want to write this article about Terrell Owens snubbing the Pro Football Hall of Fame because it only feeds his problematic (maybe clinical) need for attention. But not going to the HOF induction is unprecedented, and fans, the Hall and even Owen’s supporters deserve better.

Upon being notified by Owens, the Hall took the high road.

“We are disappointed but will respect Terrell’s decision not to participate in the Enshrinement,” Hall-of-Fame president and CEO David Baker said in a prepared statement. “While unprecedented, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the nearly 5,000 volunteers and the entire community are committed to celebrating the excellence of the Class of 2018 that will kick off the NFL’s 100th season.”

No real reason was given by Owens as to why he’s not going to his own induction. He didn’t show up with the rest of the Class of 2018 at the Super Bowl this year, so you figured something was up. He was vocal about the process of selection, calling it “a joke” when he wasn’t selected in his first or second year of eligibility.

For some context, you know the names, John Mackey, Mike Ditka, Carl Eller, Jack Youngblood, Jerry Kramer and Kevin Greene? All are Hall of Famers, all waited at least 12 years before they were selected and inducted into the Hall.

From a statistical standpoint, Owens is number two in almost every receiving category and made enough great plays to merit consideration and eventually selection to the Hall. But as I’ve said many times, if we call football “the ultimate team game” doesn’t what kind of teammate you are count?

But here’s the thing: He’s in the Hall.

Once that announcement is made on the Saturday night before the Super Bowl, that process is over. As selectors, we don’t find out who gets in the Hall in each class until everybody else does. When the announcement is made, that’s when we find out.

There’s a big push these days for players to be “first ballot” selectees. That might be a thing in baseball with many more ballots and a very different process. Nobody ever asks guys in the Hall of Fame if you were a “first-ballot” or second or third or whatever.

You’re a Hall of Famer. Period.

And once that year’s class is named, I can tell you as a member of the Selection Committee, it’s over. The Committee moves on. The process is very serious and very difficult. One thing it is not is “a joke.”

So I’m not sure what Terrell Owens is trying to accomplish by not attending the ceremony in Canton. If he thinks it’s a snub that will somehow “show up’ the Hall and the selectors for not honoring him sooner he’s sorely mistaken.

We don’t care.

Hopefully my friends who have been Owens apologists over the years will stop telling me what a great guy he is.

He’s not. It’s that simple. Not anybody I want to be associated with anyway.

He says he’ll have his own celebration somewhere else at a different time.

Good.

Don’t invite me.

Anatomy Of A Pick: Jaguars Take Bryan At 29

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It wasn’t flashy or a big splash but rather described as a “value pick” as the Jaguars selected defensive lineman Taven Bryan with the twenty-ninth pick of the 2018 NFL Draft.

Bryan is listed at 6’5″ and 291 lbs and was projected to “become an instant starter” by the NFL scouts at the combine.

So how did the Jaguars get to Bryan?

They were a little surprised that three offensive linemen were picked so early in this draft. They knew G Quenton Nelson and OT Mike McGlinchy would be gone before their pick but going in the top 10 was a bit unexpected. That shifted their focus to other players, and once the Raiders took T Kolton Miller at 15, it shifted their focus to the next four players on their board.

“We felt like we solidified a lot of needs in free agency so we could take our highest rated guy. And we did,” General Manager Dave Caldwell said.

Of the nine picks before they were on the board, the Jaguars had four players rated about the same. Leighton Vander Esch, the linebacker who went to the Cowboys at 19 probably wasn’t in that group because the Jaguars, and much of the league, thought he’d be gone before then. Back to back centers were taken at 20 and 21, not on the Jaguars radar. They might have liked Rashaan Evans, the Alabama linebacker taken at 22 by the Titans but he was gone. Not a pressing need.

Georgia’s Isaiah Wynn, listed as an offensive tackle was a nice player but not rated that high by the Jaguars. Probably not big enough. Listed at 6’3.” He went to the Patriots.

The next three picks are probably players the Jaguars were considering if they fell to them at twenty-nine.

“We thought with about 10 picks to go, one of the players we liked would come to us,” Jaguars VP of Football Operations Tom Coughlin said.

It might not have been a top-heavy draft for receivers but D.J. Moore from Maryland was getting a lot of late attention. Even with third and fourth string quarterbacks he had plenty of production for the Terps. And he’s fast. Not unexpected the Panthers needed just that and took him at twenty-four.

Local product Hayden Hurst was a favorite in town and emerged as the top tight end prospect in the last several weeks. He would have filled a need, and at 25 years old, he’s got the maturity to step in and play. He spent two years in the Pirates organization as a pitcher before going to South Carolina to figure out a football career. Quite a story for a first round pick, the first ever out of Bolles. The Jaguars would have liked him, but the Ravens took him at twenty-five.

Was it possible Alabama’s Calvin Ridley would fall all the way to the Jaguars? Even though he dropped through the top twenty, there were still too many teams in front of the Jags to expect to get receiving help. In a surprise, the Falcons took him at 26, despite having Julio Jones, another Alabama receiver, and Mohamed Sanu as their starters. He was projected as an excellent slot receiver and could be that for Atlanta. Even if the Falcons hadn’t taken Ridley, he probably wouldn’t have gotten by the Seahawks or the Steelers, picking right before Jacksonville.

Coughlin said he took some calls from other teams but decided to stick in their spot. Bryan was the highest rated player remaining on the Jaguars board when they made their pick.

“Outstanding value,” Coughlin noted. Which means he thought Bryan would go higher.

‘He showed athleticism at the combine, that’s for sure,” Jaguars Coughlin said late on Thursday. “His 40, his vertical, his direction changes. He’s a solid young man.”

Running under 5 seconds in the 40-yard dash is impressive for a player his size, but it wasn’t just the “measureables” that convinced the Jaguars to take Bryan. Coughlin has always liked players who compete in the weight room as well as on the field and Bryan fits that bill.

“He’s a weight room guy,” Coughlin said with a big smile. “If I was a young guy like Bryan, I’d be getting Calais’ coffee to learn from a great pro like him.” Coughlin on Bryan’s personality.

“Is that what he said? Bryan said with a laugh on a conference call with local reporters. “I don’t know. I will have to see when I get there, I guess.”

With the success they had on defense last year, Bryan thought he might go to any team but the Jaguars. And he thought he’d go higher in the first round.

“Yes, honestly I was really surprised,” he noted. “I thought there was no way the Jags were going to pick us. You guys already have a bunch of Pro Bowlers and a bunch of great players. I was, ‘Well, they are definitely not picking me.’ Then you guys called me and it was awesome.”

Bryan said all of the right things you’d expect a rookie to say coming into a new situation in the NFL.

“It is a great opportunity. Those guys are Pro Bowlers. There is a mix of old and young guys. They are definitely good at what they do, seeing this past year. I’ll come in and try to learn everything I can from them and try to pick their brains as much as I can and try to do as much as a I can to help the team out.”

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

No Sure Thing In The Pro Football Hall Of Fame

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Privileged to be in the room as the Jacksonville representative during the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame discussions, I’m annually surprised but never shocked at what happens during the selection meeting. When you get 48 people with an opinion talking about the same thing, the winds of change are always blowing. Players you figure going in are locks aren’t always that at all and others who seemed to float into the final fifteen without much fanfare turn into “can’t miss” finalists.

It’s unpredictable. Even among the selectors during breaks in the eight hour meeting the question, “What do you think?” is always met with the same answer: “Who knows?”

Getting to the final fifteen to be discussed by the selection committee is extremely difficult. That’s why listening to the presentation for each player is sometimes awe-inspiring and never disappoints. The players were so great during their careers that “I’m voting for that guy” is my first thought when his credentials are laid out.

Of course, of the fifteen, only five will get in, and the cut process from fifteen to ten and ten to five becomes more and more difficult. Sometimes the cut only comes because the committee figures a player will be back in the room again. Some of it’s a perceived slotting process, with one player waiting on another who’s been a finalist longer.

I know, it seems convoluted and perhaps even unfair, but that’s why it’s so hard to get into the Hall.

This year the three first-time eligible finalists all got in. Ray Lewis, Brian Urlacher and Randy Moss were certainly Hall of Fame-worthy players. There’s a thought that when a player of that caliber becomes eligible, he should go in immediately. A “first ballot” Hall of Famer is a line thrown around by everybody as if it’s that easy. It’s not.

While this year’s class is the youngest every selected, where does that leave players who had Hall of Fame careers but didn’t get tagged with the “first ballot” line?

This year five offensive linemen made up a third of the finalists. Joe Jacoby was eliminated in the first cut, still leaving four in the final ten, including Tony Boselli. You knew they were going to cancel each other out in the next round; it was only a question of whether one might sneak through.

None did, confirming that it’s a logjam that might not soon easily be fixed.

No one questions Boselli’s greatness. He’s considered the second best tackle in the history of the game behind Anthony Munoz. But the credentials of Alan Faneca, Steve Hutchinson and Kevin Mawae are impeccable. All great players, all eventually get to Canton. But when?

You could make the distinction that Boselli is a tackle with the other three interior linemen. But if you pit one against the other, it never works out well.

That’s why all the talk of momentum and who’s on deck is generally wrong. Although he’s the next wide receiver “on deck,” there’s no guarantee Isaac Bruce will get in next year. Same with Tony. Or the other three lineman.

Tony Gonzalez, Champ Bailey and Ed Reed are all first-time eligible players in 2019 and look to be finalists. Do they have the “first ballot” tag that seems to spark outrage when they don’t get in? If so, that leaves two spots for 12 other players, at least four of them offensive linemen.

That’s why the answer inside “the room” will carry outside all year as well: Who knows?

The Argument For Tony Boselli

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Photo by: Phillips Helmets

If there’s one sticking point to Tony Boselli’s inclusion as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, it’s the perceived brevity of his career. The numbers are straightforward: Boselli played 91 regular season games plus six playoff games for a total of 97 games.

Games played is a good measuring stick instead of seasons since the length of an NFL regular season has expanded from twelve to fourteen and to the current sixteen games.

So by comparison, players who played about one more modern 16-game season more than Boselli who are in the Hall of Fame include:

Lynn Swann … 116
Earl Campbell … 115
Dwight Stephenson … 114
Kellen Winslow … 109
Paul Hornung … 109
In addition to the two players who were selected for induction last year, Kenny Easley and Terrell Davis, played 96 and 78 games respectively. In all, there are 32 players with less than 100 games played already in the Hall including: Gale Sayers, Dick Stanfel, Doak Walker and Cliff Battles. That’s about 12% of the total number of players in the Hall. So including a player with less than 100 games played takes a special talent and Boselli qualifies as that.
Having drafted Boselli with the second overall pick in 1995, Tom Coughlin saw every play Tony played. He called him the “cornerstone of the franchise” and believes Boselli lived up to the expectations.

“Tony was simply the best offensive tackle in the game throughout his career,” Coughlin said. “I never had to worry that his guy would make a play. Ever.”

Often called the best tackle to ever play the game, Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz agreed.

“In my opinion, after watching Tony Boselli play during his NFL career, is that he is one of the best offensive tackles I have observed.”

I asked Mark Brunell, who said Boselli was easily the best player on the Jaguars, if Boselli was the best football player he’d ever played with. The 19-year veteran and teammate of Boselli for Tony’s entire career said “I wouldn’t say Tony was better than Brett Favre, Reggie White or Drew Brees, but those are the guys he’s in the conversation with.” Pretty high praise and comparison to two, no discussion, first ballot Hall of Famers and a Super Bowl winning quarterback.

It’s no coincidence that when the Jaguars were relevant when it came to the post season in their infancy, it was during Boselli’s career. They went to the post-season four times in his first five seasons and twice played in the AFC Championship game.

You could call the era Boselli played in the “Golden Age of Tackles” in the NFL.

Willie Roaf, Jonathan Ogden, Walter Jones, Orlando Pace all Hall of Famers, and Tony Boselli had an overlapping career with all of them. Another tackle might not be a Hall of Fame finalist for another ten years. Maybe Joe Thomas and possibly Tyron Smith or Taylor Lewan15 years from now. So we’re talking about a special time from 1992 when Pace came into the league until he retired in 2009.

Statically, Tony compares favorably with all of those players. In an analysis of sacks allowed and yards rushing and numerous other categories, Boselli is equal to or above those other four.

Boselli was on the All-rookie team in 1995. He was All Pro three times, 4 if you count the 1996 selection by Sports Illustrated. He was named to five Pro Bowls.

He was named All-Decade first team of the 90’s despite only playing five years in the decade and one was his rookie year. He passes the eye test. If you saw him play, you knew you were watching a special talent.

Gary Zimmerman, in the Hall of Fame, was the other All-Decade tackle. Willie Roaf, in the Hall of Fame, was second team. Every other offensive first-team All Decade Player of the ’90’s has been elected to the Hall.

Everybody I talked to from Boselli’s era agreed that he was Hall of Fame material during his playing career. The perceived brevity of his career, 97 games, should be viewed in its perspective. It wasn’t so brief after all.

If the election of Easley and Davis last year showed that greatness is the overriding qualification for the Hall, Tony Boselli checks every box.

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

What Are Tony Boselli’s Chances? Inside The Hall Of Fame Process

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It’s a long process to induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. While the only eligibility for players to be retired for five years, the qualifications are stiff.

But they’re not spelled out.

If you were a Pro Bowl or an All-Pro player, you’ll get on the initial ballot, but pretty much any player who’s been out of the game for five years can be placed on the list through a simple call to Canton.

And that’s where it starts to get tough.

This year just over 100 former players were nominated for the class of 2018. That list was sent to the 44 members of the selection committee. Those selectors represent the 32 NFL teams, the Pro Football Writers Association, at-large journalists who cover professional football, and two current members of the Hall. The list has grown with NFL expansion as well as the desire of the Hall’s Board of Directors to include more “national” broadcasters and writers who don’t necessarily cover one team.

I don’t remember if there were many “at-large” selectors when I was asked to join the committee in 1995 as the Jacksonville representative but I do remember the committee was much smaller. At the time, pro football coverage was still dominated by the “legacy” writers and broadcasters of the game. Jack Buck, Will McDonough, Edwin Pope, Tom McEwen, John Steadman and Furman Bisher were all regulars. They were a tight knit group who traveled together, drank together and had definite opinions about who was worthy of induction to the Hall.

There wasn’t really a hierarchy, but certain members provided a little more clout than others. It always helped a candidate if they spoke up on their behalf. And almost always sank their candidacy if a negative opinion was offered.

Two things were certain in the early years of my membership on the committee: As the new guy I’d get lobbied by some other members to be a part of their cause and Jack Buck would always end the meeting with a hilarious, profane joke.

I’m not sure if I was the youngest guy on the committee, but the average age was 56 in the late nineties. It relied on some statistical analysis, but mostly on the “eye” test: Either a guy was a Hall of Famer or he wasn’t.

Now, the committee is younger, more broadly informed about everything that goes along with pro football (the explosion of information has helped that) and while the “eye” test is still a good gauge, statistics have a larger role in a player’s career.

From the more than 100 on the original list this year, the 44 members of the committee were asked to cut that list to 25, and then to 15. The 15 are called “finalists” and in the vernacular of the committee, they get “into the room” to be discussed at our annual meeting, the day before the Super Bowl.

The meeting used to start around 7AM and ended at noon because that’s when the press conference was scheduled for the announcement. Over the years that time has been pushed back to accommodate the meeting, and television, the NFL network, and now the NFL Honors show that airs on Saturday night.

Each player is presented to the committee by the media member from the city where he played the majority of his career. Sometimes two selectors will speak if a player, like Cris Carter, spent his career predominantly in two different places. (Philadelphia and Minnesota). The presentations are supposed to last about 5 minutes and are generally positive, although a player’s career is laid out including the ups and the downs.

A comment, question and answer period follows each presentation, so with 18 presentations including the contributor and the senior categories, it’s a long day. When I first joined the committee, coffee and pastries were offered before we started. Now the Hall of Fame staff provides two full meals.

Once the presentations have ended, a vote is taken to cut from 15 to ten, and then the ten remaining are voted on to cut the list to five. Even after that arduous process of getting to the final five, an up or down vote is taken on each of the final five with an 80% approval of the committee necessary for election to the Hall.

I used to sit at the meetings between Furman Bisher of Atlanta and Edwin Pope of Miami. Kind of an amusing coincidence since Jacksonville is between those two cities. Furman loved to talk about golf in North Florida, which courses he liked and what tour players he had no use for. He joked that he talked about golf since he didn’t have any Falcons to present to the selectors for the Hall. I can remember Furman making presentations for Deion Sanders and Claude Humphrey as players who spent parts of their career in Atlanta. By contrast, it seemed that Edwin was up and down in every meeting presenting the numerous Miami Dolphins who had made it into the final fifteen.

So I felt more like Furman than anybody else last year when I made the presentation for Tony Boselli. It was the first time in 22 years I’d been asked to make a presentation, with Boselli being only Jaguars player to ever make it into the room.

This year I’ll also present Tony to the committee. Last year he made the first cut to 10 but was eliminated in the cut to five. Sometimes that means a player has the support of a big part of the committee, other times it doesn’t. Sometimes there’s carry-over, sometimes there isn’t.

Nobody denies Tony’s Hall of Fame ability as a player. It’s the perceived brevity of his career that is the only sticking point.

That’s where there’s one difference this year that plays in Boselli’s favor. Last year’s class included Kenny Easley and Terrell Davis. Easley played 95 games, Davis 86. So length of career didn’t’ keep either one of those players out of the Hall and both played fewer games than Tony.

Will that matter? No prediction here out of respect for the entire process but I do think Boselli belongs in the Hall based on the criteria presented. With fifteen worthy players, including five offensive linemen on the ballot, for only five spots, the competition, like every year, is very tough.

Heartbreaking Loss In AFC Championship Ends Jaguars Season

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If there was an early indication of how the AFC Championship game against the Patriots would go it was how the Jaguars would survive the original onslaught from New England. Gillette Stadium can be a tough place to play when the Patriots are rolling and the noise meter is rising.

Giving New England the ball after winning the toss, the Patriots zipped downfield, using mismatches putting wide receivers on linebackers in four- and five-wide formations. Tom Brady found the open receivers to drive it inside the ten.

But the defense came up with a big stop and forced a field goal and a 3-0 Patriots lead.

Right away the Jaguars offense responded behind Blake Bortles. On their second possession, mixing the pass to receivers and running backs and using Leonard Fournette in the middle of the line, the Jaguars scored to make it 7-3. Offensive Coordinator Nathaniel Hackett was mixing up the calls and using Corey Grant going wide for big chunks of yardage. The Jaguars clearly knew the Patriots couldn’t keep up with Grant on the edge and he burned them. A nice play call for Marcedes Lewis who blocked then released to the end zone gave the 12-year veteran the first post-season touchdown catch of his career.

On the next possession the Jaguars did a lot of the same, this time Grant catching a pass in the flat and taking it to the four. Fournette bulled it in from there to give the Jaguars a 14-3 lead.

They are the Patriots so you knew they’d get something going. After not targeting Rob Gronkowski for the entire game, Tom Brady threw it to him 4 of the next five plays. A couple of incompletions and nice catch then a vicious hit by Barry Church on a ball up the seam was called for unnecessary roughness. Church probably needed to go lower there but Gronkowski left the game and didn’t return after halftime. Brady threw a ball down the left sideline to Brandin Cooks that was out of bounds but A.J. Bouye was called for pass interference. A really questionable call, the ball was probably uncatchable and Cooks ran himself out of bound as the ball was in the air.

A couple of more completions and James White scored from the one to make it 14-0.

On the Pats scoring drive the Jaguars defense was called for 47 yards of penalties. Seemed rather conspicuous.

Although there were 55 seconds on the clock, Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone chose to kneel on it and go to halftime with a four-point lead.

The pass interference play as well as a delay of game on a critical third down catch that was negated by the penalty were two of the key plays in the half.

Getting the ball to start the second half, the Jaguars moved it; converting some third downs leading to a 54-yard Josh Lambo field goal and a 17-10 Jaguars lead. Marrone showed a lot of confidence in Lambo there. He sure didn’t want to give the Patriots the ball at midfield.

The rest of the third quarter was a lot of give and take but the Jaguars defense found a way to keep the Patriots from crossing midfield.

With the ball inside their own ten a couple of times, the Jaguars did just enough to keep New England at bay before driving the ball to the Patriots 25 yard line and getting another Lambo field goal to make it 20-10.

Just when it looked like New England had found a rhythm, including a trick, throwback play, Myles Jack stole the ball and forced a turnover keeping the Patriots off the board.

But the offense couldn’t do anything with it and punted it back to the Patriots.

That’s when Tom Brady started doing his thing. Without any blitz pressure from the Jaguars, Brady threw it all over the field, including another throwback play and scored on a nine-yard TD Pass to make it 20-17.

In the 4th quarter the Jaguars running game disappeared. It was obvious the Patriots weren’t going to let Fournette get going. They swarmed Bortles on passing downs and the Patriots switched the field. A very mediocre punt by Brad Nortman was returned by Danny Amendola to the Jaguars 30.

From there a methodical Brady led offense moved it to the 5 yard line where Amendola caught a TD pass in the back of the end zone for a 24-20 lead.

With the ball, three timeouts and the 2 minute warning, the Jaguars had a chance to win the game but came up short despite a good effort. Bortles 4th down pass to Dede Westbrook was a little short after a scramble and it was deflected away.

With their three timeouts, the Jaguars were able to keep over a minute and a half on the clock but on third down they lost the edge and James White ran for a first down.

Sitting in the second row of the press box, Jaguars VP of Football Operations said, loudly, “Are you serious,” and packed his stuff, loudly, and stomped out, loudly.

Heartbreaking stuff, but classic Patriots and Tom Brady, doing just enough to send the Jaguars home and return to the Super Bowl as defending champions.

While heartbreaking, not completely discouraging. These opportunities don’t come around all the time, but without much change on the roster, the Jaguars could be good for a while.

Jaguars Come Alive, Upset Steelers, Head To AFC Title Game

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It was thirty minutes of the unexpected in the first half between the Jaguars and the Steelers.

Getting the ball first, the Jaguars looked like world-beaters on offense marching right down field in eight plays covering 66 yards and scoring on 4th down to take a 7-0 lead. Leonard Fournette dove in from the one for the TD while Blake Bortles avenged a bit of last week’s criticism going 3 for 4 in the drive.

It wasn’t what the Steelers or their fans expected from a team that only scored 10 points last week against Buffalo. Heinz field was quiet and the Pittsburgh sideline bewildered.

It didn’t get any better for the Steelers as Myles Jack tipped a Ben Roethlisberger pass to himself and tiptoed on the sideline for an interception at the 18. Fournette scored off right tackle to take a 14-0 lead. Crickets in the stadium.

On the Jaguars next possession in the second quarter they marched it right down the field again, this time with T.J. Yeldon scoring from 4 yards out to take a 21-0 lead.

Unexpected, but watching the game it was a legitimately dominating performance. The Jaguars offensive line was gouging the Steelers front four while Bortles was composed and getting the ball to the right guys. It wasn’t perfect, but things were happening all in the plus column for the Jaguars.

Up until the 21-0 lead the defense was stopping the run, playing fast and putting enough pressure on Roethlisberger to keep the Pittsburgh passing game at bay. But then they started playing a bit off the ball, giving up chunks of yardage and the Steelers scored making it 21-7. La’Veon Bell was doing most of the work but the TD was a pass from Ben to Antonio Brown where A.J. Bouye never turned around.

Momentum seemed to shift but Yannick Ngakoue stripped the ball from Roethlisberger and Telvin Smith picked it up and ran 50-yards for a TD to take a 28-7 lead. Smith was called for taunting as he went into the end zone so the 15 yards on the kickoff gave the Steelers the ball at midfield with 2:20 to play in the half. It’s a penalty that really hurt the Jaguars because it put Pittsburgh in great field position and gave them a little momentum.

Still the defense was getting the job done, forcing a 4th and 8 at the 36 with time dwindling and Pittsburgh out of timeouts. That’s when Tashaun Gipson inexplicably let Martavius Bryant get behind him for a TD to put the Steelers right back in it at 28-14. It’s the only thing the Jaguars couldn’t do in that situation to allow Pittsburgh to gain some momentum, but that’s what happened.

As I mentioned, it was a half of “unexpecteds” on both sides. Nobody expected the Jaguars to get things done the way they did in the first half and giving up two long TD throws is about the last thing anybody expected from the Jaguars defense.

It carried over to the second half with Pittsburgh taking the opening possession and driving right down field for a TD. Roethlisberger showed great trust in Bell on a little circle route against Telvin Smith, throwing the ball in the end zone where Bell was going to be. Telvin never saw it coming and Bell made a great catch to make it 28-21. Now it’s a game.

All the momentum remained with the Steelers and their fans came alive as well. A couple of good plays by the Jaguars offense were negated by Brad Nortman’s punt being deflected giving the ball to Pittsburgh at midfield to start the fourth quarter.

That’s when the Jaguars showed some life, the defense stopping Pittsburgh on 4th down to get the ball at midfield. After a couple of runs, Bortles hit Keelan Cole for 45 yards down to the 3 and Leonard Fournette scored his third TD of the game for a 35-21 lead.

But the Steelers came right back, converting their second 4th down touchdown of the game, Roethlisberger to Brown in front of Bouye to bring Pittsburgh within seven. It felt like playoff football. The Jaguars defensive backs said all week that Brown was the best receiver in the league and he proved it on this day. Who thought this would be a 35-28 game at any point?

Again the Jaguars responded, this time with Bortles showing poise, patience and throws that he’s not known for in his time in Jacksonville. A critical 3rd down to TJ Yeldon on his third or 4th read gave the Jaguars the ball in Steeler territory. Then just a beautiful play fake and a small toss to the fullback, Tommy Bohanon gave the Jaguars a 42-28 lead with 4 minutes to play. It might be the “coming of age” drive for Bortles who looked the part of a playoff quarterback.

Again, the Steelers drove down and scored, a sandlot play accounting for the TD. Roethlisberger was scrambling past the line of scrimmage but threw it backwards to Bell who went the final eight yards for the TD. Still a game.

But the onside kick didn’t go ten yards and was hit by a Steelers player, giving the Jaguars good field position. A couple of Fournette runs (he was over 100 for the game) made it 4th and 1 letting Josh Lambo kick a 45-yarder for a 45-35 lead and 1:40 to play.

The Steelers had a desperation drive at the end that burned the clock and scored with no time left for a 45-42 win by the Jaguars. Before the game was over, the Jaguars were already an eight-point underdog to the Patriots next weekend in New England. Of course, they were a touchdown underdog here in Pittsburgh and nobody gave them much of a chance.

That’s what happens.

Jaguars In Pittsburgh, All Business

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Photo by: Phillips Helmets

It should be a little colder than expected for the Jaguars/Steelers game on Sunday. Temperatures in the teens during the game could impact play; with the thought the Jaguars should get the worse of it.

“It’s just a couple hours of sacrifice,” Linebacker Telvin Smith said after the team arrived in the Steel City. “Just understand you gotta do it.”

Departing the busses in downtown Pittsburgh the team was business-like but still loose. A hallmark of the Jaguars this week.

“We ain’t been talkin’ we just been preparin'” Smith said.” “That’s what I love about this team.”

Does it help that they have a playoff game behind them?

“That’s the thing, na, I feel like it’s the next game,” Telvin added. “The next one, on the road. I kind of like it’s on the road. We took care of business (at home) so now it’s time to go on the road.”

“You add the word playoff game to it and people start to get jittery. I can’t say it’s all on the line because that’s what you play for all season.”

As one of the youngest teams in the league and the most unlikely playoff participant, the Jaguars have gotten a lot of accolades for their defense. It’s been compared to the historic Super Bowl winning Bears and Ravens defenses and even the Broncos of two years ago. None of that seems to have gotten to the Jaguars D.

“It’s flattering to hear a lot of this stuff. That’s why I’m happy. Nobody’s bought into this stuff it just, ‘let’s play.'”

The Hammer Podcast, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

Jaguars To Play Eagles In London

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They’re not sure if it’ll be week 7 or 8 but the Jaguars will face the Philadelphia Eagles in London this fall. The game will be one of three in London for the NFL in 2018 including two at Wembley and one at the new home of Tottenham Hotspur, White Hart Lane. The exact date will be determined once the Jaguars and the NFL decide which week the team will take it’s bye next season.

Here’s more of the release from the NFL:

The Jaguars are 3-2 in London and have won three consecutive games at Wembley Stadium. It will be their sixth game in the NFL’s International Series. This marks the Jaguars’ third inter-conference game in London and the first since Nov. 9, 2014, when they faced the Dallas Cowboys in Week 10 of the 2014 season (L, 17-31).

On Aug. 21, 2012, the Jaguars made history by becoming the first NFL team to commit to playing four home games at Wembley Stadium. Jaguars Owner Shad Khan, along with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, declared that the Jaguars would play one game each season in the United Kingdom from 2013-16. That deal was later extended through 2020.

On Sept. 24, 2017, the Jaguars defeated the Baltimore Ravens, 44-7, in a Week 3 matchup at Wembley Stadium. The official attendance for the game was 84,592, a then-record for any NFL game played in the United Kingdom. WR Allen Hurns has caught a TD in three consecutive games at Wembley Stadium, and joins Brandon Lloyd and teammate Marcedes Lewis as the only played to catch three or more TD passes at Wembley Stadium. Lewis tied the franchise’s single-game record when he hauled in three TD receptions from QB Blake Bortles in the Jaguars’ Week 3 victory in London.

The Jaguars’ footprint in London continues to grow, as the team has registered over 75,000 fans in the U.K. and rank eighth among NFL teams in European NFL merchandise sales.

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

Jaguars Beat Buffalo With Defense,”Grit”

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You never know how the big stage will affect teams and athletes when they’ve never been there before. Against the Bills, the Jaguars looked like they weren’t sure they belonged in the NFL playoffs in the first half.

On offense they were horrible. Between play calling and execution, they couldn’t get out of their own way. They had 84 yards on 26 plays. Bortles had more yards rushing, 35, than passing. He was 6-of-15 passing for 33 yards but a couple of scrambles at the end of the half enabled Josh Lambo to kick a field goal to tie the game at three. Leonard Fournette had only 16 yards on six carries.

Luckily the defense was stout as usual, even getting a turnover on Aaron Colvin’s first career interception. But the Jaguars couldn’t do anything with it.

Getting the ball to start the second half the offense moved the ball a bit. They actually allowed Bortles to throw it on first down and changed the field position. An exchange of punts gave the Jaguars the ball on the 14 yards line.

And that’s when the offense started to produce. After a 15-play 86-yard drive that took 8:52 off the clock, the Jaguars took a 10-3 lead. On fourth down from the one, after not getting anything done, Offensive Coordinator Nathaniel Hackett called for Blake to fake it and hit the tight end over the middle. After all that, they trusted him on 4th down and he delivered. Bortles hit Ben Koyak in the end zone for a seven-point lead.

It wasn’t pretty after that on either side. A few more punts and the Jaguars controlled the game with the ball at their 20 and six minutes to play. But they couldn’t muster enough offense to seal the game and had to punt. Twice. After a pretty good performance through three quarters, Brad Nortman hit two very average punts giving Buffalo the ball just short of their 40 twice.

Both times the defense got the job done, the second time viscously taking Tyrod Taylor to the ground and knocking him out cold. It was a scary scene when they rushed on the field to check him out. Finally they sat him up and Taylor wobbled off the field. That brought in Nathan Peterman who had a couple of completions and a run for a first down. But the pass rush got to him and forced an intentional grounding and on the following play Jalen Ramsey tipped the ball in the air in coverage and grabbed it for an interception before it hit the ground to finally end the game.

In his first playoff game, Blake Bortles had more yards rushing than passing, the first time that’s happened since Steve McNair did it the last time Buffalo was in the playoffs.

It certainly wasn’t pretty, but the postseason mantra is win and advance and that’s what the Jaguars did at home. Don’t tell them it wasn’t pretty, they don’t care.

The Steelers are next, 1pm next Sunday in Pittsburg

Jaguars Home, Have Already Moved On

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Photo by: Phillips Helmets

After a New Year’s Eve flight home and a look at the 15-10 loss to the Titans aboard the Jaguars charter, players didn’t see it much differently than when the left the field in Nashville: That’s over, it’s on to the playoffs.

“It’s what you fight so hard for, it’s what camp is all about, grinding those 16, 17 weeks,” said former Super Bowl champ Malik Jackson in front of his locker Monday. “We’re one of 12, we’ll continue to climb the ladder.”

As one of the few Jaguars with any postseason experience, Jackson can give his teammates a few ideas what to expect starting next Sunday against Buffalo.

“The game gets a lot faster, every play counts,” he added. “It’s critical. We can’t give up that screen (from yesterday’s game).”

A veteran of nine playoff games in Arizona, the Jaguars Calais Campbell agrees the postseason is different.

“Doesn’t matter what seed you are,” he said. “At this point, it’s anybody’s game. What you did in the regular season doesn’t matter.”

And in terms of preparing? Campbell said it’s up to each individual player to figure that out. Stay in his routine, and prepare to give more.

“Whatever you have to do to get ready,” he explained. “For some guys, it’s a little more focus. Just a little more. You don’t have anything spectacular, just do you job. Every play is critical. You don’t have to do anything extra.”

For a player like wide receiver Allen Hurns, the playoffs are something new, but he’s taking a cue from his teammates.

“Put the regular season behind us and start the playoffs,” he said, echoing the experienced veterans in the locker room. “We had a couple of rough games here and there but we’re playing in the most important part of the year, January.”

And it’s a special feeling for Hurns and numerous other Jaguars who have been around for a few years. Their seasons were finished with playing out the string games, mounting losses and thinking about some time off. Not this year.

“It feels good,” he said with a smile. “Some guys this time of year are making offseason plans. You have to go forward. They (Buffalo) will look at the film for the past couple of weeks but we have to put that behind us.”

With the game scheduled for Sunday at 1 o’clock, the Jaguars will have their regular home routine for the week. That means today some running and lifting to stay loose, off tomorrow and back to practice Wednesday through Saturday.

Jaguars Limp Into Playoffs

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Photo by: Phillips Helmets

Whether they call it “a game of inches” or “on any given Sunday” or “playing above the x’s and o’s,” there’s an intangible you can feel when a team is playing winning football. It’s an edge, a little hop, a swagger in the body language that’s easily identifiable.

On their run to the playoffs, the Jaguars had that edge on both sides of the football and on special teams as well. Over the last two weeks since winning the AFC South Division title, it hasn’t been there.

With nothing to prove in Tennessee except that they’re a playoff worthy team, the Jaguars didn’t have that edge and now limp into the playoffs with more questions than answers.

Maybe it’s too much to ask of a receiving corps that didn’t expect to see much playing time across the board when the season started to continue to make plays at a high level. Without Marqise Lee but with Allen Hurns back, the Jaguars were still leaning on Dede Westbrook, Keelan Cole and, on occasion, Jaydon Mickens to get the job done. As good as they’ve played, they’re still not Hurns, Allen Robinson and Lee, the starting WR’s the Jaguars expected to have on offense.

With a short-arm and a drop in the end zone, Westbrook showed he’s not the complete professional package as a rookie. It’s a different game in the NFL and as talented as he is and as much flash as he’s shown, he’ll have to make those plays if he wants to be a solid, consistent and eventually great pro.

If there’s one constant, the Jaguars defense is legit. Consistently good, occasionally spectacular. A long screen pass/run by Derrick Henry for 66 yards showed the Jaguars susceptibility to getting overly aggressive, up the field, and out of position. But that’s rare. Pressure on the quarterback, tough against the run and able to score, the defense kept the Jaguars in the game through three quarters.

Then they scored, Yannick Ngakoue picking up a fumble in the backfield and ran 67-yards for a touchdown to bring the Jaguars within 15-10. They had only allowed the one long TD and 3 FG’s through three quarters to keep the game close.

There’s narrative that quarterback Blake Bortles is the problem, but if nobody’s open, there’s not much he can do. Except for the one ill advised throw, Bortles was on the mark, going through his progressions and throwing into tight windows. But without much help from the receivers, the offense sputtered.

They had a couple of chances in the 4th quarter but couldn’t convert. And although the defense had Tennessee on the ropes, Marcus Mariota danced around three defenders for a first down to seal the game for the Titans.

Things can change from week to week and the Jaguars have to hope they can flip the switch to get back to the team they were in November. Opportunistic on defense, confident on offense, the November Jaguars were the best team in the league. Bortles was the top rated quarterback and the lynchpin on offense. They haven’t looked like that team for a couple of weeks now and it’ll take a big transformation to win a playoff game, even at home.

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

Jaguars Dominate Texans 45-7, Qualify For Post-season

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It’s not that the Jaguars beat the Houston Texans easily to qualify for the post-season for the first time since 2007, not even how they dominated all over the field winning 45-7. It might be who’s making plays for the Jaguars that are the biggest surprise.

Midway through the first quarter Marqise Lee left the Jaguars game against the Texans with an injured ankle. He was hurt on a running play of all things. Since the Jaguars only dressed four wide receivers for the game, it forced punt returner Jaydon Mickens into the game.

“Who’d of thought that in week 14 the Jaguars would be playing with a guy off the street, an undrafted free agent and their 4th round pick as their wide receivers?” my colleague Brian Jackson said in the press box. “And getting the job done?”

But that’s exactly what happened against the Texans as Blake Bortles and the Jaguars offense got untracked early and dominated Houston in the first half, 31-0.

Already with the top quarterback rating in the league in December, Bortles was 17 of 25 for 246 yards and 3 TD’s with a 139 rating in the first half. Only Mark Brunell had thrown for three touchdowns in the first half of the game in Jaguars history.

And all of it done with three guys catching it that didn’t figure to get much playing time when the season started.

“He worked and worked and did everything he could to make this team,” Jaguars Vice President of Football Operations Tom Coughlin said of Keelan Cole when the original 53 man roster was announced. Cole was on the team, but pretty far down the depth chart with Allen Robinson, Allen Hurns and Marqise Lee slated as starters.

Cole played at Kentucky Wesleyan in college and said after his first preseason game in New England that it was the largest crowd he’d ever played in front of as a football player. We figured out that the crowd at his first game was bigger than the sum total of fans that had ever seen him play throughout his career. Cole has great speed and made some catches in the preseason but a few drops also showed he was still a rookie. Nonetheless, he was pressed into action when Robinson went out with a torn ACL in the Jaguars opener.

When he was drafted in the 4th round, Dede Westbrook knew he had something to prove. From a Heisman finalist, Westbrook fell out of favor with NFL teams after some off-field, domestic violence issues. The Jaguars drafted him in the 4th round as a “prove it” pick and while he showed promise in the preseason, the Jaguars were deep at receiver and he was somewhat injured so they put him on revocable injured reserve. All he was expected to do was work, stay in shape, learn the offense and be ready. When he was activated, you saw on a couple of plays why he was such a highly regarded college player at Oklahoma. But he was still a rookie.

After being cut by the Raiders, Jaydon Mickens was out of football when the Jaguars signed him to their practice squad. Mickens and fellow rookie Larry Pinkard weren’t sure what their future would bring but they desperately wanted to be football players. So they slept in their cars in the parking lot of the stadium during their practice squad days.

“It wasn’t any big deal,” Mickens told us earlier this week. “We’d hang out at Marqise’s or wherever until it was time to leave at night and just go to our cars and get some sleep. Then we’d get up, go into the stadium, workout, eat, and spend the day there.”

In case you’re wondering, Mickens drives a Nissan Altima, so he folded the back seats down to he could stretch out into the trunk. “I’d use some towels or whatever to make a pillow,” he told us.

So when the Jaguars only had four receivers active for the Houston game, Mickens was pressed into service when Lee left with an ankle injury.

With those three guys on the receiving end, Blake kept his hit streak going, hitting Mickens twice and Cole once for touchdowns. In addition to the TD catches, Mickens caught beautiful corner throws by Bortles and Cole was the recipient of another great throw by Blake down the sideline that turned into a 73 yard reception and a first down at the one.

Add two Tommy Bohannon touchdowns from short yardage and everybody was getting in the act. The two Bohannon TD’s were from a position the Jaguars didn’t even have on the roster the past few years.

While Bortles is playing great and the wide receivers are “playing above the x’s and o’s” as Coughlin likes to say, the defense continues to dominate. If we’ve learned anything from the 2017 Jaguars it’s that defense travels. No matter where, no matter who the opponent is, defense can carry a team to victory. DeAndre Hopkins caught a touchdown pass over Jalen Ramsey in the third quarter to give the Texans their only points in the game. Ramsey was so irritated he wouldn’t let any of his teammates talk to him when he came to the sideline. It’s that kind of swagger and attitude, wanting a shutout, that allows you to win 45-7. (Corey Grant scored a TD in the 4th quarter)

Against an overmatched Texans offensive line, Calais Campbell recorded his franchise record 14.5 sack, helping bring the team’s season total to 50. Telvin Smith returned to the lineup giving defensive coordinator Todd Wash more flexibility.

While Houston is banged up and terrible this year, the Jaguars did what you’re supposed to do this time of the season against an inferior team: Beat them easily and move on.

It brings up some interesting scenarios for the post-season. Next week’s game at San Francisco has the possibility of clinching the division for the Jaguars. They’ve never won the AFC South since it was formed in 2002. Both of their division titles came when they were in the AFC Central.

Winning the division gives the Jaguars a home playoff game but it’s possible, if they win out, they could move up to the #2 seed, have a first round bye and play a home game the following week.

Pretty heady stuff for a team that won three games last year.

Jaguars Make Big Statement Beating Seattle, 30-24

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Photo by: Phillips Helmets

There actually is a strategy to keeping Russell Wilson in check. The problem is Wilson is so good, so smart and such a good athlete that executing the strategy is a problem.

For the Jaguars defense, a combination of straight up field, stay-in-your-lanes rush, backed by the linebackers spreading across the field and man-to-man by the DB’s did just what Doug Marrone was looking for in the first half. “You can only hope to contain him,” the Jaguars Head Coach said earlier in the week, and that’s exactly what they did. Wilson had one scramble carry in the first quarter and another in the second for first downs but nothing that troubled the Jaguars too much.

A missed field goal by Blair Walsh at the end of the half kept the score at 3-0 Jaguars. It was the first time this season Seattle had been shutout through 30 minutes of football.

In the third quarter things were very different. It wasn’t Wilson causing the Jaguars problems but rather shortcomings of their own.

A nice drive gave the Jaguars a 10-0 lead, culminated by a TD pass from Blake Bortles to Dede Westbrook from 18 yards out. Westbrook ran a great corner route and *Bortles throw was even better, softly hitting the Jaguars rookie as he crossed the goal line.

A Seattle field goal made it 10-3 Jaguars but Corey Grant fumbled the ensuing kickoff and Seattle recovered. Wilson hit Doug Baldwin in the end zone to tie the game at ten and it looked like momentum had shifted to the visitors.

But on first down, Blake hit Keelan Cole on a deep corner for a 75-yard TD and a 17-10 lead. Cole had caught a couple of deep balls in the preseason but this was the first big pass play for him in the regular season, showing his speed and pretty good hands. Bortles throw was also spot-on, just like you draw it up.

Give some credit to the Jaguars offensive line for pass protection but also opening some holes for the running game. For the first time in several weeks, the five starters from the beginning of the year were back in the lineup as Patrick Omameh returned to left guard and Jeremy Parnell was at right tackle.

Again the defense stopped Wilson and the Seahawks forcing a punt. Jaydon Mickens broke through at the point of attack and scampered all the way to the one-yard line on the return. Leonard Fournette scored to make it 24-10.

A two-touchdown lead usually allows the Jaguars defense to rush the quarterback and create all kinds of problems for the opposing offense. That was true again as Wilson tried a long pass over the middle that was intercepted by A.J. Bouye at the two. It was Bouye’s second interception and the Jaguars third of the game. Jalen Ramsey had picked off a Wilson heave into the end zone earlier.

From the two, the Jaguars put together an impressive drive, mixing Fournette running and Bortles hitting Cole and Marqise Lee on crossing routes, chewing up time and getting a 51-yard field goal on the other end by Josh Lambo to take a 27-10 lead with ten minutes to play.

But Russell Wilson is Russell Wilson and somehow he escaped the Jaguars pass rush, ducking under two defenders to throw a 61-yard touchdown pass to make it 27-17. Wilson was about to be sacked but escaped, and still paused in the pocket to look down field to find Paul Richardson wide open. Tashaun Gipson either lost track of Richardson or expected Wilson to go down but either way it was an easy TD for Seattle.

Again, the Jaguars offense pounded it out of their own territory and chewed up some clock to get some points. Westbrook’s catch of a Bortles pass down the sideline was the highlight and Josh Lambo made it 30-17.

But Wilson somehow escaped another sack and threw a 74-yard TD pass to Tyler Lockett to keep the Seahawks in the game, 30-24. Wilson kept the play alive and there was a mix up in the Jaguars secondary as Lockett was wide open with Barry Church giving chase. Very unusual for the Jaguars defense to give up two long plays but there was no “give up” in the Seahawks to keep the game close.

A big run by Fournette on 3rd and 11 sealed the win in Seahawks territory but the game quickly turned ugly. In the “Victory” formation, somebody from the Seahawks jumped into the Jaguars line, meaning there was pushing and shoving and a punch thrown by Sheldon Richardson that got him ejected.

The same thing happened on the next play with Quinton Jefferson getting ejected and nearly going into the stands when a fan threw something at him. He was doing plenty of jawing coming off the field, but throwing stuff at players is low rent in itself.

Now 9-4, the Jaguars are in sole possession of first place in the AFC South with three games to play after Tennessee lost to Cardinals in Arizona. A showdown with the Titans is still possible in the last game of the year on New Year’s Eve to determine the division champ but the Jaguars hold the upper hand with games against Houston and San Francisco set before then.

One thing the Jaguars showed in this game was a gritty toughness they hadn’t shown before. They had a two-touchdown lead and nearly lost it but the offense was able to get some things done. When the Seahawks tried to make it a slugfest, the Jaguars responded in kind with ferocity that we haven’t seen in a while.

Looking like a playoff team, the Jaguars certainly made a statement in this one.

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

Jaguars Sweep Colts, Eye Post-season

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In December, playoff teams emerge, playing their best football and beating teams they’re supposed to beat. No upsets, no cliffhangers, just a professional job on the field, getting it done and moving on.

That’s what the Jaguars were doing in the first half against the Colts at home on Sunday. Opening the game on defense, the Jaguars forced a punt and followed that with an 11-play, 80-yard offensive drive capped by a TD pass from Blake Bortles to Marqise Lee for a 7-0 lead. The drive featured a fake-punt pass play at midfield from Brad Nortman to James O’Shaughnessy for 29 yards and a first down.

More solid defense helped the Jaguars win the field position battle and a 10-0 lead followed after a Josh Lambo 30-yard field goal from 30-yards out. The Colts followed with their best drive of the half, featuring good runs by Frank Gore and a silly face mask/horse collar penalty by Myles Jack. That led directly to three points, 10-3 Jaguars.

But again, in a very professional manner, the offense marched right down the field, much of it on Bortles arm to score a TD on their next possession. Very effective use of the three running backs on the drive complimented the play calling and Bortles throws. Leonard Fournette was doing the heavy lifting on the ground. Chris Ivory was called on for some tough yards inside and T.J. Yeldon caught the ball out of the backfield on a screen pass for a first down. Blake’s throw to Keelan Cole for the TD was a pretty pass and catch, for a 16-3 lead. The PAT was muffed because of a bad snap.

It’s become somewhat of a bad habit for the Jaguars defense to give up yards allow the other team to stop some of the momentum after the offense gets a score. That was the case at the end of the first half as the Colts were driving for a score until Jalen Ramsey put a stop to that. On first down from the Jaguars 23, Ramsey laid out across the middle and made one of the best catches you’ll ever see for an interception at the seven and returned it to the twenty-five. Jaguars led 16-3 at the half.

Starting the second half with the same professional approach, the Jaguars marched right down the field and scored again, taking a 24-3 lead after the two-point conversion pass, a jump ball to Marcedes Lewis. The drive culminated with Fournette scoring and lining up the offense afterwards for a “free-throw” celebration. The best part of that was both Jeremy Parnell and Chris Reed stepping in the “lane” to block out on the FT attempt. Good fundamentals across the board.

Again the Colts responded, Jacoby Brissett hitting T.Y. Hilton on a crossing route for 40-yards and a TD. 24-10 Jaguars. The Jaguars defensive secondary was in a zone and Brissett had plenty of time to throw. Barry Church looked like he either missed him or passed him off to somebody else but either way, Hilton scored untouched.

Another drive by the Jaguars ended in a field goal and a 27-10 lead. Bortles was sharp and making smart decisions. He ran for a first down in the middle of the field and threw a beautiful pass to Cole down the sideline over the cornerback and in front of the safety to get the ball inside the ten-yard line. Both Fournette and Cam Robinson were hobbled by ankle injuries on the drive although they both walked off the field. Both returned.

A couple of punts were exchanged, a bad call against Yannick Ngakoue gave the Colts life but Tashaun Gipson picked off Brissett leading to another Lambo field goal and a 30-10 lead and that was the final score of the game.

This was a methodical, efficient win by the Jaguars who got the kind of game out of Bortles they’ll need the rest of the year and into the post-season. Smart an accurate, confident and strong, Blake got the ball to his receivers when they were open and they caught the ball and held onto it. When you have two rookies in the game (Dede Westbrook and Keelan Cole) who start catching the ball and making a contribution in critical situations, it fuels the rest of the offense and keeps drives alive. The return of Allen Hurns will give Bortles more options and a reliable receiver who will get open and catch the ball in traffic. Marcedes Lewis looks rejuvenated. The defense is solid, recording four more sacks against the Colts and hoping for the return of Telvin Smith. (By the way, Smith’s absence was the first time a defensive starter has missed a game all season.)

An 8-4 record with four to play, two at home and two on the road shows the Jaguars to be a legitimate post-season threat if this is the kind of professional performance they can continue to display. If they do, they’ll be a tough out for the rest of the year and into the post-season, no matter who, or where they play.

Jaguars Falter, Lose To AZ, 27-21

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Photo by: Phillips Helmets

Without two starting offensive linemen the Jaguars didn’t have much to offer the Arizona Cardinals on that side of the ball. For the second week, Patrick Omameh and Jeremy Parnell weren’t in the lineup and it showed in pass protection as in the running game.

Against Cleveland last week, they got away with not much offense, getting a strong, points-scoring performance from their defense beating a Browns team that couldn’t muster much offense.

In Arizona, it was a different story as the Blaine Gabbert led Arizona offense was able to not turn the ball over, take advantage of field position and score 13 points in the first half to lead 13-3. There wasn’t anything pretty about it on either said of the ball. Field goals and a blown coverage by the Jaguars when Telvin Smith went out of the game with a concussion led to the only touchdown of the half.

After another Phil Dawson field goal made it 16-3, the Jaguars went seven plays for 75 yards to make it a one score game. Blake Bortles was the leading rusher in the game for the Jaguars with six carries for 62 yards and he scored on a 4th down naked bootleg. But when *Bortles is the leading rusher for the Jaguars it means the running game is not working. Leonard Fournette had 12 carries for 25 yards and never got going as evidenced by his longest run was eight yards.

So that leaves it up to the defense, again. A great rush up field by Yannick Ngakoue forced Gabbert to step up, giving Ngakoue another chance. The Jaguars defensive end took advantage of the situation, sacking Gabbert and hacking the ball out at the ten-yard line. That’s when Calais Campbell scooped it up and scored, giving the Jaguars a 17-`6 lead. As a free-agent acquisition, Campbell has been the biggest boon to the Jaguars, but he’s still a popular player in Arizona and no doubt he was feeling pretty good scoring a touchdown against his former team.

But as good as they played, one mistake by the defensive backfield let a receiver get behind them and score on a 52 yard pass from Gabbert. The two-point conversion was good and the Cardinals had a 7-point, 24-17 lead.

On the ensuing kickoff, Corey Grant brought it back inside the Cards, 40 and four plays later, Bortles scored again, this time from 17-yards out on a QB “read-option” play to tie the game at 24.

It had all the feel of and overtime game when the defense forced a three and out and the Jaguars offense took over deep in their own territory. A run on first down ran some clock and it appeared that Head Coach Doug Marrone was willing to get the game to overtime and take his chances. But a pass on second down was flat-out dropped by Marqise Lee to stop the clock. A run on third down allowed Arizona to call their final time out, making the Jaguars punt the ball.

“That’s my fault, “Marrone said after the game. “I got greedy and threw the ball on second down. Just should have run it and gone to overtime.”

While it’s laudable that Marrone would take responsibility for the call, you’d expect a professional receiver to make a catch of a ball right in his hands. But Lee didn’t do that, and it set up the losing end-game scenario for the Jaguars.

All along we’ve know how talented Gabbert is with quarterback skills and the two throws he made to get Arizona into field goal position were lasers and perfect. He doesn’t do that often, but when he does you see why so many coaches think he can be a big time player because he has a great arm and can really throw the “high hard one” as they say in the league.

That set up a 57-yard field goal attempt by Phil Dawson, which would be the longest of his long career. It was good with one second left on the clock and left the Jaguars on the wrong end of a 27-24 final.

At 7-4 the Jaguars are now tied for first again with the Tennessee Titans in the AFC South. Three consecutive home games start with the Colts in Jacksonville next Sunday at 1 o’clock.

Is there anything good that comes out of this loss? I don’t think any reasonable person thought the Jaguars would win out and go 13-3 so perhaps a loss like this will re-focus the team on what got them winning games. Their margin for error is small with the injuries up front and how the offense is performing. It’s not all on Bortles who’s playing without his top two receivers in Allen Robinson and Allen Hurns. He can play better, but the receivers, Lee, Cole and Westbrook are going to have to make some plays to help him out and get the offense untracked.

As Coughlin says, some of these guys will have to play “above the x’s and o’s.”