JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In this kind of season, wins and losses don’t matter. Sunday’s 19-14 loss to Las Vegas helps with Jacksonville’s draft position and player development, but the playoffs are long out the window. Even if the Jaguars end the year on a winning streak that won’t make anybody feel the holiday spirit or warm and fuzzy.
We are knee deep in the blame game of where and who the arrow should point for this season. I was actually having this conversation with some folks earlier this week. For the most part, there are two main places where the blame tends to go — the coaches and the players.
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We have talked a lot about Doug Pederson and the coaching staff and there is plenty of blame to go their way for sure. But maybe pointing the finger at the coaching staff is the easy answer. Coaches and quarterbacks get the glory for the wins and the hate for losses. It goes with the job. And it is easy to blame the coach. It is a lot easier to replace the coach and bring new energy than it is to replace some of the players in the locker room.
I mean, let’s be serious. If it wasn’t for a few late plays like the fumble in Miami, the interception in Philly, the blown coverage against the Packers — the list goes on and on — the Jags season and record would be very different. The coaches can’t play the game for the players. And that’s where the group that points the blame towards the players slides in.
Think about the defense. There have been blown coverages and mistakes in big games for the last two seasons. The defensive coaching staff changed, some of the key players changed and the mistakes are still showing up every week. When that is the product that gets put on the field why wouldn’t you blame the players? To me, that is an easy out, too. The players and the coaches are both in front of us every Sunday, so we see them, we see the mistakes, so that is where your mind goes and associates the problems. The real problem is the guy behind the scenes that we don’t see most of the season, general manager Trent Baalke. Make no mistakes, this is his roster.
There are seven guys still on the team who were there when he took over as GM. Any problems with the roster and players in bad situations are reflections of him. Also don’t forget, this is his second coaching staff in Jacksonville. Baalke is a survivor. He was on his third head coach in San Franisco before they finally moved on from him. All jokes aside, that is impressive. NFL stands for Not For Long for a lot of people, but not for Baalke. I don’t know what he does or says in meetings, but clearly it works there. It just doesn’t translate on the field. Not anymore. Baalke is an old-school guy who got his NFL start under Bill Parcells with the Jets. And he still follows a lot of the Parcells principles.
Big guys beat smaller guys. Arm length. He doesn’t like guys who transfer in college. Some of that stuff works. But as the game changes, there are more and more exceptions to those rules. As the world changes and evolves, we all have two choices — change with it or get left behind. Baalke hasn’t changed. His draft picks have been solid, but they haven’t raised the ceiling of the team. Then, he has overpaid in free agency year after year to bring in guys to raise the floor of the team, creating the situation the Jags are in now. The team is solid but it has no margin for error if they are going to win games.
Then we all stand around pointing fingers at the coaches for not doing a better job or the players for not getting the job done. In reality, the puppet master behind it all put them both in a position to fail. There have been different national reports about Baalke’s future with the team this week, including a report that he may retire. Retire, resign, step down, use whatever wording they need to, but it is time to cut that puppet master’s strings.