AFC South on the Line

JT: The Titans look to spoil the Jaguars hopes of an AFC South Division title repeat.

It would seem that the Jaguars playoffs hopes once again come down to the Mayo Bowl. The last game of the season is against Tennessee and everything is on the line for the Jacksonville Jaguars. It would seem we’ve seen this movie before. This time, however, it takes place in unfriendly territory and with a depleted Jaguars team. Jacksonville has lost their starting quarterback (something, however, tells me that T-Law might be able to give it a go in the Music City), #1 wide receiver (whose 21 day practice period just literally opened yesterday morning, so that’s some good news), #3 wide receiver (big play Zay may also, surprisingly, suit-up) #4 wide receiver/return specialist (but there is no chance Agnew plays on his newly broken leg), a plethora of offensive lineman (though let’s hope the patchwork of blockers continues to heal so they can return to fortify the swiss cheese that lives in front of CJ Beathard…or maybe Trevor Lawrence. Is the suspense killing you as much as it is me?), and that’s just on the offensive side of the ball. My point being, and often times I do not have a point, but today I have turned a corner. Today, I don’t just randomly ramble on aimlessly like I’m currently doing. Today, I have a point. I have obviously forgotten that point, after this pointless diatribe about making a point, but at one point, rest assured, I had a point. Point being, we’ve been here before, and this time, like the last, the odds are seemingly stacked against us. None-the-less, we should all look forward to handing the downward spiraling Titans a season ending “L”, thus propelling your Jaguars to another AFC South division title and a home playoff game for the second year in a row. Needless to say, this game against the Tennessee Titans is a humdinger. Also for some reason the term humdinger reminded me of this: If you don’t go see the movie “Totally Killer” about 80s time travel, serial murders, waterbeds, Zac Efron’s abs, Emo rock, the unbreakable love between parents and teenagers, creepy amusement parks, and the blatant ridiculousness of modern day pc society then, well, you lose out. It’s a comedic classic. Think “Hot Tub Time Machine” meets “Scream” meets every 80s cliche you can think up. If you grew up in the 80s you will absolutely love this movie and if you didn’t grow up in the 80s then you will absolutely love it a teeny bit less (yes, you should feel left out because the 80s were awesome). We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Are you ready for some football? ‘Cause I sure am. Those college bowl games have me all fired up. I realize that I may be dipping my toe into the fire here but what the hell, I’m a Virginia Tech Hokie and I still, to this very day, harbor resentment toward the great Bobby Bowden for allowing the thieving Peter Warrick and drug peddling Sebastion Janikowski to play in the ‘99 Sugar Bowl National Championship game against my school’s only shot at a football natty. While I do have faith in Brent Pry, this whole NIL and transfer portal thing has the current world of college football so screwed up that if you’re not in the Big 10(000) or the SEC, then you may as well be playing for a participation ribbon. All of this to say that the group of individuals tasked with selecting the CFP this year royally screwed the pooch. Not because Florida State should have gotten a spot, because they clearly should not have. They were far from one of the four best teams in the nation and they proved that in their bowl game against Georgia. Yes, I know they had a significant number of players opt out, but they would have still lost in spectacular fashion. Why? Because where the screw up occurred was in the rankings. FSU should have never been ranked as high over the past few weeks of the season had the committee not thought they were good enough to be in the final four, which they obviously didn’t. In addition, if the selection was supposed to include the four “best” college football teams then excluding Georgia was a huge mistake. It would seem that the final four should have been Alabama, Georgia, Washington, Michigan. Yes, even though Texas beat Alabama at the beginning of the season. Because, if we are talking about the four best teams, Alabama would beat Texas right now. They are the better team. My god, I love my tangents. This paragraph was supposed to easily sum up the fact that the Rose Bowl (Michigan/Alabama game) and the Sugar Bowl (Washington/Texas game) has me all fired up for this weekend’s NFL games. Because so many teams are so close to making the playoffs, and so many scenarios still exist for teams to be eliminated/move on, this weekend is going to be a great football weekend. You should be as excited as I, and if not then this column will certainly get you there, no?

The Jags are coming off a shut out victory. The Carolina Panthers were so upset by their loss in Everbank that their owner threw a drink on fans. Read that again. The billionaire owner of the the Carolina Panthers was so angry with the loss that he threw his drink on Jaguars fans. Now, I ask you, was he upset with Jaguars fans? Was he upset with the Panthers loss? Or is he a projectionist? Not the kind who used to run film at the movie theater, or the nerd who was in charge of the AV rack when substitute teachers showed horrible movies in middle school. No, he is a projectionist of a different type. He is projecting his anger onto Jaguars fans. What anger? The anger that wells up inside him, because he knows better than anyone else the draft capital and player excellence that he traded away for the right to pick number one in this past NFL draft… And he didn’t pick CJ Stroud. That MUST be killing him. Eating him from the inside out. To have to openly defend his choice of teeny tiny, “L” after “L,” producing Bryce Young, day in and day out to knowledgable people who know he made the wrong choice, and who know that he knows he made the wrong choice, and who know that he knows they know he made the wrong choice (why do I feel like I’m stuck inside a Psych episode? OH. MY. GOD. Is there a better TV series? I think not. It’s one of the few that I’m truly upset that I’ve already watched. If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky that you get to experience the complete joy for the very first time. “I’m deep in the streets Shawn.” Watch it and find the pineapple. There’s one in every episode. Like a Superman in each Seinfeld show. Ahhh, the old Thursday night line-up). That, my “Friends,” see what I did there, was quite the parenthetical. So that will about cover the drink-gate saga of the Jaguars/Panthers game. The owner was fined $300,000 btw. That’s an expensive cocktail that he didn’t even drink. Also, $300,000 to him is about a nickel and a half to the average working man… or woman. We’re not sexist here. What we are is craving this last weekend of regular season NFL football.

All of our attention can rest solely on the Jaguars and the remaining AFC South games. None of us are thinking about anything else. Christmas is over. New Years Eve (a rookie holiday, but only because I can’t stay up past 8pm anymore) has come and gone. Fantasy football is the furthest thing from our collective mind, as our leagues ended last week. Well maybe yours didn’t, maybe you are horribly, terribly, awful (redundancy for effect), and thus your fantasy season ended weeks ago when you realized you had no chance of making the playoffs. Evidently your love for the dog pound swayed your first and second round selections of Deshaun Watson and Nick Chubb, which almost immediately sent your dreams of being the next Trent Baalke quite literally down the drain, figuratively speaking of course. Point being that, before you all started reading the frequent tangents I tend to type, our full attention is on the NFL this weekend. It’s on the Jaguars this weekend, and it’s on those pesky Colts (Gardner Minshew, who knew?) and Texans and Titans this weekend. It’s all about the AFC South as well as the rest of those overpaid professionals out there playing a children’s game to support the very adult, multibillion dollar gambling industry. Which, in turn, maybe, some might say, exerts a small amount of influence on, maybe, some of the referees to make and/or not make certain calls for certain teams, in turn providing certain outcomes that certain Scrooge McDucks, at the top of the food chain, would like to see occur. I’m literally just saying, figuratively speaking of course.

Somewhere along this yellow brick road we took a wrong turn and veered frighteningly far from (I love accidental alliteration) talking about the Jaguars and Titans game. But frankly, I feel it more fun to talk about the owner of the Carolina Panthers and how he’s set that team back decades by making the stupid decision to trade the future of his franchise for the number one pick in the draft, and then selecting Bryce Young. At least when the Redskins leveraged decades of future incompetence for a number one draft pick, they selected RG3. Griffin was very very good until Mike Shanahan ran him ragged and ended a promising career through injury by overuse. The Redskins, if anyone cares, used essentially three first round draft picks on Robert Griffin III and judging buy his rookie season, by all accounts, it wasn’t an absolutely horrible decision (though some of us thought it was a bit pricey at the time). He led the team to a division title. Problem was he injured his knee playing the Ravens a few weeks before the wildcard game. Then, in an act of complete disregard for the safety and well being of his player and the franchise, RG3 was put into the wild card game against the Seahawks where his knee disintegrated (literally/figuratively you choose) and well, the Redskins no longer exist (neither do the Commanders if we are being completely honest). So the fact that the Panthers owner was so upset at Jags fans that he threw his $300,000 drink on them makes the decades of Carolina incompetence to come that much sweeter.

So fans, I will wrap this ridiculously long column up by say, the Jaguars and Panthers came into the league at the same time. They are the expansion big cats of the NFL. Riddle me this…Who would you rather have as your team right now? Your quarterback? Your coach? Your owner? Who would you rather have hitched your trailer to? When all is said and done, our Jaguars are movin’ on up, George and Weezie style. Next stop, Tennessee, for a most important showdown with the men of Mayo. If Jacksonville can swing another Titan beat down, then I’ll see you at The Bank, yet one more time this season. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.