[sportscurmudgeon]

jdlea:

You said the Jags could not run the ball and did not have a good "D" and that's why they missed the playoffs? Better go check the stats. Jags' running was fine with Fred Taylor - not the best in the league but certainly not an embarrassment. The Jags stayed in contention with their defense because Musgrave's offense could not score.



As to the hand-wringing about the starting QBs last year, it was incredibly obvious to me that Joe Gibbs and the staff were not sufficiently impressed with Patrick Ramsey and what they saw on tape of his performances to go with him as the #1 guy and so they had to go out and find a better QB. They went looking and found someone who turned out not to be "better". Hi ho!!

Then came training camp. Brunell was pretty mediocre - at best - but he was better than Ramsey who was bumfuzzled on his best plays. So the staff decided to start Brunell probably figuring that he would work the kinks out during the season. Sadly, that did not happen last year and is unlikely to happen this year.

That's why Brunell started the season and why it took a long time to make the switch to Ramsey. He probably did not overwhelm the staff with his abilities on tape and he stunk out the joint in pre-season and so they probably didn't want to play him at all if they could get away with it. But Brunell's tank was so empty that they had to go to Ramsey at mid-season.

This year is THE acid test for Ramsey. He's been around for a while (4th season) and has had more than a few starts and has had plenty of snaps. He will have been working in this system for 19 months once the season starts. He needs to play at least 50% better than he did at the end of last year or the staff may conclude that he's not going to be an elite QB in the NFL in our lifetimes.

This is the the year that Ramsey has to get it done; I think he has a lot of physical potential from his right shoulder to the finger tips on his right hand; my worry is about his brain.