Jaguars: To thine own selves be true

By Os Davis  |   Sunday, January 06, 2008  |  Comments( 1 )

Jacksonville Jaguars
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All right, Jacksonville Jaguars fans, you can start breathing again. Your team has survived quite a fright from the frankly scary Pittsburgh Steelers to live and play another day.

But it wasn't pretty. Close, yes. But definitely not pretty. Jacksonville 31, Pittsburgh 29 was no determined pursuit by discounted underdog a la New England-New York Giants in Week 17; this was no back-and-forth tug of war between equally matched teams, like last year's Seattle-Dallas wild-card game. The truth is, this game was a single fortuitous run by David Garrard away from going down as one of the all-time great choke jobs.

Sure, a 'W' is a 'W', and the Jaguars will be the ones advancing for the privilege (snicker) of going to Foxborough for the divisional game. If you're a Jags enthusiast, you can't help but be concerned, though; if there were ever a moral loss, this was it.

Seriously, 19 unanswered points in the fourth quarter? What happened? As soon as the under-the-radar Jags suddenly produce a blip on the screens, they barely make it through the flak? Who was it out there on the field dressed in Jacksonville colors for the game's final 20 minutes?

In short, what happened to the formula that had the Jaguars sneaking up to the stratosphere of the power-poll elite? To wit:

Coaching smarts - where were they? After doing the "chopping wood" thing all season, Jack Del Rio suddenly got loopy late in the Pittsburgh, unfortunately falling in love with his low-watt QB and the running game.

Trouble could be sensed for the Jaguars immediately on the possession after the first Pittsburgh TD (on a fourth-and-12 play wherein Santonio Holmes was incredibly open). The first three plays called on Jacksonville's answering series went wobbly pass incomplete, wobbly pass short and incomplete, sack, punt. Jack, you're on the road with a possibly tenuous 11-point lead: Why aren't you taking the home crowd out of the game again, pounding the run with your two studs?

(Was anyone else mentally writing the "run it up the middle for no gain" portion of this week's Gregg Easterbrook column over at The Worldwide Leader in [American] Sports as the fourth quarter went down?)

Going to the pass on second down on the next drive resulted in an interception. And how about the very poor challenge call right before the two-minute warning? And how about not trying to get the next play off before the two-minute warning? For a while, it looked as if the best decision Del Rio made in the second half was to take the delay-of-game penalty before the game-winning field goal.

Jack, Jags - It's not as if you haven't been here before. Act like it.

Who needs a passing attack at all? Um, the Jaguars do. If the running game fails (see below), Garrard & Co. are going to have to perform quite a bit better in a playoff situation. After being given seemingly free rein to take it to the air in the fourth quarter (see above), Garrard went 2 of 7 passing for 19 yards, with one disastrous pick and one sack. Troy Polamalu read the man like a book. A page turner, in fact.

While Garrard has been receiving quite a bit of favorable press during the Jaguars' brief blip on the radar for his low turnover ratio, an important thing to remember about this QB is that the less often he throws, the better he is. Garrard's overall quarterback rating for the regular season was 102.2. In games when he totaled 30 or fewer attempts, it's 107.6. With 25 or fewer, representing five games, Garrard's rating goes up to 110.0 and his accuracy just over 65 percent.

Statistical trends can't really explain away Garrard's terrible performance in this one, though, of 9 of 21 for 140 yards, two interceptions and one TD. Jacksonville faithful are praying it really was the turf.

Running attack? What running attack? Coming into the game with a superstar two-headed monster of Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew -- the second-most prolific running game in the league over the regular season, we were reminded -- the Jaguars totaled a lowly 135 yards on the ground, 32 of which came with Garrard's miracle scamper. Bad surface or no, Taylor has to manage better than 3 yards per carry.

Secondary? What secondary? While guys like Justin Durant, Jeremy Mincey, Grady Jackson and Rob Meier tormented Ben Roethlisberger with constant pressure (even as Paul Spicer was mostly neutralized throughout) rarely seen by Pittsburgh.

On third down, however, the secondary simply wasn't dependable: The Steelers went 7 of 14 in converting on third down, keeping them in the game. Roethlisberger and his receivers tormented Reggie Nelson, Terry Cousin, Brian Williams and Scott Starks.

Tell you who's going to complain about the surface next week: The above trio must face Randy Moss and Wes Welker on field turf made hard like a parking lot in a New England cold snap.

What about the head games? One of the great untold stories is the excellent trash-talking going on from the Steelers' side late in the game. As Al Michaels put it, Cousin and Williams started "getting chippy" ("losing their cool" might be another valid expression) about midway through the second TD drive.

What followed was a barrage of dagger-type penalties, mostly of the utterly unnecessary variety: Stuff like pass interference and illegal contact gave the Steelers good field position time and again. Had Mike Tomlin and friends known the head game with the Jaguars would be so easy to win, they would've started the yammering on the opening kickoff.

For now, you may breathe that sweet oxygen, Jags fans: Your team has escaped the proverbial bullet. Enjoy it while it lasts, though, because there may well be quite a few blue in the face down Florida way on Saturday.

The best hope against the mighty New England Patriots just could be to stick with the game plan. It's just sane enough to work.

RealFootball365.com: The voice of reason all year-round.
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's ...
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