NFL PREVIEW: JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS

by DMtShooter, Five Tool Tool

Greetings, Jags Fan! Or should I say, greetings, fantasy football honks and people who are desperate for a non-Colts non-Patriots AFC champion. Actual Jacksonville fans number in the dozens, at least on the Internet, because people in Florida's Panhandle just got an Internet last week, and that was just for the supremacist Web sites. (Now, now, Jags Fan. Put down the shooting rifle and call off your dog Skeeter. We're just having some fun here.)

This year's Jags team is a sexy pick from many prognosticators, in that they are young and physical. They also are just downright adorable, really, in that since no one actually knows anyone from Jacksonville, it's a team without rivalries, or even any significant amount of hate.

Seriously, who hates on the Jags? The Colts don't hate them, because they've beaten them down routinely. The other teams in the division hate the Colts. They were swapped out of a division when the league went to four per conference, so their developing nastiness with the Steelers and Ravens got short-circuited. Carolina, the other expansion team that came in with them at the same team. plays in the other conference. Tampa and Miami, the other teams in the state, rarely if ever play them. Frankly, other than Tom Coughlin and Byron Leftwich, there might not be a third person in America with Jag Hate.

Getting back to the field... there's no really good reason why their offense should be better, for only one reason: there's no way that David Garrard can go an entire year with fewer picks in a season than some other quarterbacks have in a game. No matter how accurate he is, and how well the Jaguars manage the game with slow pace and an outstanding running game, he's going to throw close to 10 picks this year, just from tips and bad bounces. At least.

The Jags tried to upgrade last year's questionable wideout corps by importing... questionable new wideouts (Jerry Porter and Troy Williamson, come on down!). Hey, if you can't get quality, go for quantity. Keep an eye out for Marcedes Lewis, the tight end that started to assert himself in last year's playoffs, and the eternal danger that is Maurice Jones-Drew in space. But, well, everybody knows what makes the Jags go, and that's the running game.

Will this be the year that Fred Taylor finally acts his age? Probably not, because the Jags are spectacular about managing Taylor's carries, but he could always succumb to the groin issues that plagued him in the 20s. But the real threat here, at least from a fantasy honk perspective, is fullback Greg Jones, their best short-yardage threat and a Zach Crockett-esque figure of menace to the short touchdown runs. He was hurt last year, and if you have Taylor or J-D, you want to see him get hurt again. Fast.

On defense, they might miss Marcus Stroud, the defensive tackle and name (well, at much of a name as you can get in Jacksonville) that moved on to Buffalo in the off-season. So long as they can suite up Paul Spicer, they should be fine... and the linebackers are good, though downright anonymous. In the secondary, beware the presence of William James, who Eagle Fan knows far too well. You won't like him.

Any other worries? A few. If Garrard goes down -- and he hasn't been the sturdiest quarterback in the league -- the franchise is in the hands of Cleo Lemon. That ain't good.

If they don't break through on the road in Indy in week 3, doubt will have to creep in that maybe they are never going to break down the door.

Houston is scary good, and Tennessee made the playoffs last year; there isn't an easy game to be had in this division, and the out of division games include some nastiness with Pittsburgh, Green Bay and Minnesota. They could easily be a better team with a worse record... but I do think that Manning will be a little dicey at the start of the year, and if the Colts two defensive stars (Sanders and Feeney) aren't 100%, they'll get push around. Hard.

Prediction: 11-5, first in the AFC South... and a playoff loser when they get into a shootout. I like them and their talent, but you still just get the sense that if someone plays their A game against them, they don't have the talent to match.