Fan Fuel: Another disastrous year for Jacksonville Jaguars

January 3, 2013, 1:52 PM

BY LIAM R. MCGUIRE – FAN FUEL BLOGGER



The Jacksonville Jaguars ended their 2012 season the exact same way that they started it, by losing. There weren’t many positive for the Jags disastrous season where they lost 14 games, winning only two against just-slightly-better-teams, the Raiders and the Titans. Blaine “I can’t believe he was a top 10 draft-pick” Gabbert improved from being the worst starting quarterback in the NFL to becoming one of the worst backups in the league. The team benched Gabbert for a QB who before 2012 never had a season of throwing more touchdowns than picks.



The whole Jags season makes you wonder how they would have performed with a better QB? What if stud rookie Russell Wilson was still available in the draft in the mid-third round and they could have taken him? Well that possibility was a reality, and instead of taking the QB that tied Peyton Manning’s record for most touchdowns thrown by a rookie QB, they took a punter.



Now to be fair to the Jags, the punter they took, Bryan Anger, also broke rookie records. For a team that punts a lot (the Jags punted 91 times, second only to the Cardinals mind-blowingly-bad 112 times) Anger set NFL rookie records for gross average (47.8) and net average (40.8). He also broke multiple franchise records and was named a Pro-Bowl alternate.



However, having a punter break records over a quarterback breaking records is like kissing your sister, who is actually your brother, but in drag.



GM Gene Smith’s recent firing is completely justified when you consider that he took Anger over not only Wilson, but super-sub Kirk Cousins and better-then-you-think Nick Foles. Smith’s decision was incomprehensible as was his reasoning for drafting Anger, saying that he’d “rather take a starter over a backup.”



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The Jaguars had a lot of glaring holes to fill on their roster, and while they didn’t have a great punter in 2011 (current Lion Nick Harris), punters are not valuable commodities that high draft-picks should be wasted on. Shane Lechler, arguably one of the greatest punters ever, was a fifth round draft pick, and that was the king of dumb draft day reaches, Al Davis, making that pick (see Janikowski, Sebastian).



Bryan Anger is technically a great punter, but a great punter versus a good QB doesn’t warrant any comparison.



The Jaguars went from a five-win team to a two-win team. While there was no way for certain to say that Wilson would thrive in the NFL the way that he has so far with the Seahawks if he was with the Jags, there was definitely hints that Gabbert wasn’t a starting-caliber NFL QB.



Gabbert never threw for more than 300 yards in any games during his rookie season, his low completion percentage (50.8) was only bested by Tim Tebow, His 5.4 yards per attempt was last in the league among qualifying passers and his 65.4 passer rating was also dead last (Jamarcus Russell’s career rating is 65.2 and Tebow’s is 75.3).



Gabbert didn’t have a bad rookie season, he had a historically bad rookie season. While Gabbert improved in his sophomore season, the Jaguars never scored more than 23 points with Gabbert starting, and in Chad Henne’s first start when Gabbert was placed on IR, the Jags scored 37 points against one of the NFL’s better defences.



The Jaguars didn’t even draft a QB in the 2012 NFL draft, if they do the same in the 2013 draft, then they can expect to have another disastrous season and they will challenge for the least appealing team in NFL history.



New owner Shahid Kahn has a lot of important decisions to make.



The rumored Tebow-time that Jacksonville may get is sadly a better alternative to their current mess. No team has ever punted their way to the Super Bowl.



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