The Jaguars started with a bang, but they've been mostly duds ever since
The Good, Bad and Ugly in Jacksonville, from crazy-early success to a crazy WR curse
By
Pete Prisco
•
8 min read
Back in May the NFL writers and editors at CBSSports.com gathered together to discuss the key figures and moments of every NFL franchise in the Super Bowl era. Before long we were discussing every team's best and worst moments, along with their most-hated players and coaches, as well as some of the more bizarre things each team has been involved in. That spirited discussion produced this series -- the Good, Bad, Ugly and, sometimes, Bizarre moments for every team. We begin with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Good
Tom Coughlin and the upstart expansion Jags
There are those out there who will wonder how you do a Good, Bad, Ugly and Bizarre for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
After all, hasn't it all been bad and ugly?
Not quite.
It might seem that way lately, but back in the early days of the franchise there was a lot of good -- almost Super Bowl good.
Before all the blown first-round draft picks, and jokes about an empty stadium and misguided talk of a franchise readying for relocation, there was the beginning. It was a virginal time that saw the Jaguars become the best expansion franchise in league history, fueled by extra picks in each round of their first draft, which led to a rapid rise and two AFC Championship Games in the franchise's first five seasons.
None of that would have been possible without coach Tom Coughlin. They were his team, built in his mold, with his hand and influence involved in virtually every single decision in the first five years of the franchise.
When the Jaguars hired Coughlin away from Boston College, it shocked many. This was a team that flirted with Jimmy Johnson, Tony Dungy and others, yet settled on the strict disciplinarian from the college ranks. They also gave him total control, power that he yielded it like a man swinging a big bat at a little tomato.
Coughlin, who is deep down a really good man, coached with an iron fist and instilled fear in those around him. But he knew football. He knew how to build a winner. And, mostly, he knew how to coach.
The Jaguars were his team, built in his style, with his disciplinarian ways lording over them.
He made the roster decisions.
He made the draft picks.
He made game-time decisions.
Control was his middle name. How out of hand was it? When he didn't like the paint in the hallways of the team facility, he asked that it be re-painted. So it was, even though the city owned it. When it was done, he didn't like it. So he had it done again.
When new carpet was installed in the locker room, he held a team meeting to tell his players to treat it like it was their living room carpet. Seriously?
But his ways worked. He built a team that played in the AFC Championship in his second season in 1996, a group of wide-eyed kids and veterans hanging on. By 1999, the Jaguars went 14-2 and seemed headed to the Super Bowl after a 62-7 blowout of the Miami Dolphins in the AFC divisional round. The players even made a Super Bowl rap, which Coughlin loathed.
Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher played the rap song at his team meeting the night before the AFC Championship Game. The Titans won the game, the third time they beat the Jaguars that year, and Jacksonville never again has sniffed another title.
Three years later, with the Jaguars in cap hell and plenty of the core players gone, Coughlin was fired after going 6-10 in 2002, his third consecutive losing season. Bad personnel decisions and knee-jerk reactions to the roster were Coughlin's undoing.
Tom Coughlin the general manager got Tom Coughlin the coach fired.
Coughlin went on to win two Super Bowls with the Giants, and when he did win those titles, there's something that Jack Del Rio, who took over for him in Jacksonville, once said to me really stood out.
Shortly after he was hired, and upon reviewing the team's roster and doing a deep tape study, Del Rio said that the 6-10 Coughlin achieved with his roster in 2002 might have been one of the best coaching jobs he'd ever seen.
Right up to the end in Jacksonville, Coughlin was one hell of a coach. He just had too much power -- and that was his undoing.
The Bad
The safety that started the slide
The Jacksonville Jaguars franchise hasn't been the same since a safety in the third quarter of the 1999 AFC Championship Game against the Titans.
Trailing 17-14 to the Titans, the Jaguars had just forced a Steve McNair fumble at the 1. They appeared to have momentum back. But on second down, Mark Brunell dropped back to pass and was sacked by Jason Fisk and Josh Evans when the right side of the Jacksonville line blew the call. That made it 19-14 and Derrick Mason ripped the subsequent free kick 80 yards for a touchdown to make it 26-14. The Titans went on to win that game 33-14 to get the Super Bowl.
The Jaguars have won one playoff game since then and the franchise has become a laughingstock of sorts for some.
That title game against the Titans was the third meeting between the two division rivals and the Jaguars, even though they lost the previous two, came in with a swagger. How much so? They actually beat the Falcons in a regular-season game at Atlanta and kept those same shoes from that game to use in the Super Bowl that would be played on that same field.
Then there was the Super Bowl rap. Uh, oh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAYJz88cqM4
The AFC title game started well for the Jaguars and they led 14-7 before a late fumbled punt by Reggie Barlow led to a field goal by Al Del Greco with 20 seconds left in the half to make it a four-point game.
Coughlin once told me that Eddie George told him the Titans were skating until that fumble. Then it was the Jaguars who fell on the ice and couldn't get up.
The bad started at half time with a locker-room fight between defensive players who verbally attacked Barlow for the fumble. The ringleader was a backup defensive tackle named Larry Smith.
Even so, they had their chances in the second half, but four turnovers ended their Super Bowl dreams. Some Jaguars still insist that Jimmy Smith was wide open for what would have been a 99-yard touchdown catch if the line didn't mess up the assignment on the safety.
Maybe so, but instead the safety turned that franchise's destiny around.
The Ugly
Jacksonville's infamous wideouts
Has one position on a team ever been as cursed as the receiver position for the Jaguars?
Oh, they've had their moments with some great receiver play from guys like Smith and Keenan McCardell early in the growth years and now recently with Allen Robinson and Allen Hurns.
But along the way, the receiver curse has been there and an underlying theme -- a sad one of sorts. Here's a look:
Andre Rison: Signed as a free agent in 1996, this bad-boy proved to be true to his name by sleeping late for meetings, showing up hung over -- and sometimes intoxicated, according to teammates -- and eventually was released midway through the season. He never learned the playbook and consistently ran wrong routes leading to interceptions.
Jimmy Smith: He took over as the starter when Rison left and became a star himself, and was unstoppable at times. In 2000, against the best scoring defense ever in a 16-game season in the Baltimore Ravens, he had 15 catches for 291 yards and three touchdowns. But in 2001, he was pulled over for drunk driving and was found to have cocaine in his system. In 2003, he was suspended for four games and subsequently retired in 2006. Smith later admitted his problem with cocaine.
R. Jay Soward: The Jaguars picked him in the first round of 2000 draft in a desperate attempt to get more speed. But Soward came with baggage, including a reputation for smoking pot. Even so, the Jaguars still drafted him. He played a total of 13 games, was suspended several times by the league for violating the league's substance-abuse program, and never played another down after the 2000 season.
Reggie Williams: Williams was the team's first-round pick in 2004 out of Washington. He had some early success, catching 189 passes in four seasons, but he was arrested three times and the Jaguars did not re-sign him in 2009.
Matt Jones: This former Arkansas quarterback was considered a raw, but talented, receiver prospect. The Jaguars loved the idea of making him a big-play receiver when they took him in the first round in 2005. He flashed some ability, and had 65 catches in 12 games in 2008, but ended that season suspended by the league for violating the league's substance-abuse policy. He never played again.
Justin Blackmon: The Jaguars picked him fifth overall in the 2012 draft and he played a grand total of 20 games. Like the others here, he was suspended several times for violating the league's substance-abuse program, getting hit with an indefinite suspension in 2013. He's never applied for re-instatement and has continued to have issues.
If you are scoring, that's four first-round picks at the position that went bad and one superstar in his prime in Jimmy Smith that never was able to live up to what should have been a Hall of Fame career.
That's ugly.
The Bizarre
Never give a punter an axe
I remember walking into the Jaguars locker room in 2003 and seeing this giant wood stump with a big axe in it and wondering when and if somebody would get hurt.
It was put there by coach Jack Del Rio in line with his mantra to "Keep chopping wood."
Corny? Somewhat.
Dangerous? You bet.
After their first victory that year, punter Chris Hansen decided to follow the lead of others and take a whack at the stump. Instead he lost control and ended up with a severe gash in his non-kicking leg and a trip to the emergency room. He would miss the rest of the season and the stump was gone soon after.
Said Del Rio at the time: "I'll find another slogan."
Oh, and another punter.
