Jacksonville Jaguars fans have sat through three and a half years of terrible football. The front office told the fans to be patient during the rebuild. They told the fans the team is built. Fans believed and came into 2016 with much hope and anticipation only to be rewarded with more terrible football.
Owner Shad Khan has decided to not fire Bradley for whatever reason, and the fans have ultimately had enough. Fans have been booing the team as the product on the field has been abysmal. Players have even started to call out the fans as a result which is very disappointing given what the fans have had to endure the past nine years. The rebuild has failed miserably, and there’s only one thing left to do, blow up this team.
Blow Up the Jacksonville Jaguars
Clear the Front Office
Shad Khan has sat back idly and watched his team’s futile attempts at playing winning football for far too long. Khan needs to take ownership of this team and clear house. Gus Bradley needs to be fired immediately. His defensive scheme simply cannot be replicated outside of Seattle. He has not proven capable of making the necessary adjustments to put his players in the best position to perform well.
During Bradley’s tenure, two offensive coordinators and one defensive coordinator have been fired inside of four years. Dave Caldwell has fired everyone except the person that should have been let gone by now. Caldwell’s job security was solid following the 2015 season because of Blake Bortles’ impressive sophomore campaign. However, Bortles’ regression this season has exposed Caldwell to more criticism for his misses in the first and second rounds. Allen Robinson and Jalen Ramsey are his only two hits, and any person with a brain would not have passed on Ramsey.
Free Agency Disappointments
Free agency has been hit and miss for Jacksonville, but even the hits haven’t proven to help the team win ball games so far. Malik Jackson is a great player and brings pressure every game, but for that amount of money you want sacks and he has just one so far in seven games. Tashaun Gipson isn’t bad, but he certainly hasn’t impressed either. Julius Thomas makes an appearance every few weeks, then disappears. Jared Odrick is a good run defender, but those players come a dime a dozen for far less money.
The offensive line play is still poor even after bringing in Kelvin Beachum and Jermey Parnell. Davon House is a fourth string corner after one up and down season. Dan Skuta is a running joke at this point. Chris Ivory was never going to look good behind this offensive line. Prince Amukamara has played well enough to warrant a second contract in Jacksonville. Ultimately though, with 14 wins in 55 games, it is very hard to argue that free agency has done anything to aid this team over the past four years.
Pieces to Keep
If Shad Khan decides to blow up this team, and he should, there are only a dozen or so players that deserve to stick around: Jalen Ramsey, Allen Robinson, Malik Jackson, Brandon Linder, Telvin Smith, Myles Jack, Prince Amukamara, Yannick Ngakoue, A.J. Cann, Aaron Colvin and Roy Miller. Of course, a few other players such as Sheldon Day and Dante Fowler need more evaluation because of their youth.
Bortles will get another year to prove if his sophomore campaign was a fluke year or if he truly can be that franchise quarterback the fans thought he potentially was a mere three months ago. The fact that the number of players who should be retained after four drafts is so low is damning on Caldwell’s remaining time as the Jaguars’ general manager.
Perhaps the poor performance of the team is solely on Gus Bradley’s shoulders. One will never know for sure because Caldwell and Khan continue to allow the second worst head coach in NFL history to remain employed. Fans can only hope a new coach would revitalize these players and have them ready to play good football for 60 minutes, but over the last four years only a handful of players could do so. The Jaguars are where they are now because the front office has tolerated a losing culture, and the fans have suffered through this ineptitude for an unacceptable amount of time. Shad Khan, it’s high time to blow this team up.
