Top 5 Reasons the Jacksonville is the Dumbest Franchise in the NFL

For years, Jacksonville has shown their ineptitude in the front office.

This is the team that drafted Byron Leftwich. This the team that traded for Troy Williamson. This is the team that traded Marcus Stroud for nothing. This is the team that gave Jerry Porter $30 million. This is the team that built a defense to beat the Colts, and have never finished ahead of them in the divisional standings. This is the team that fired Tom Coughlin.

All told, this is a team that makes dumber moves than even the Oakland Raiders. And as a Colts fan, I love to pile it on. So let’s look back now at the top 5 things that make Jacksonville look oh, so stupid.

5.) Drafting Byron Leftwich.

In 2003, the Jacksonville Jaguars made a BIG splash by drafting a 6-5, 245 lb QB from Marshall named Byron Leftwich. Many people expected the move, despite the fact that Jacksonville already had a more than capable signal caller in Mark Brunell. Leftwich was known as the guy who helped Marshall win a game on a broken leg, but he was also known for his inability to run and his ridiculously long and tedious wind up that allowed any decent DB to read his throws. So why draft Leftwich? Because new Jags GM James Shack Harris wanted to have his own guy, and he thought Brunell was too old. That didn’t stop Brunell from moving on to Washington, where he threw 38 touchdowns and only 20 picks for a rating of 80.6 in two seasons.

Brunell threw 144 touchdowns with only 86 picks in 9 years for a quarterback rating of 85.4 while with the Jags. He led the team to the AFC Championship Game in 1996 and made 3 pro bowls as a Jaguar. But Brunell was benched by new Jaguars General Manager VP James Shack Harris in favor of Byron Leftwich following halftime of the third game of the 2003 season. It would be the final time Brunell took the field as a member of the Jaguars.

4.) Trading Away Marcus Stroud

The Jags used to win games with their big defensive set. They have always been a smash mouth team, allowing power backs like Natrone Means and Fred Taylor to run all over the opposition. But they ruined that mindset before the 2008 season by trading away space-eating defensive tackle Marcus Stroud to the Buffalo Bills for, and this is the kicker, a third round pick and a fifth round pick. Buffalo stole Marcus Stroud, a first rounder and three time pro bowler, and left the Jags with a defensive line manned by John Henderson, who is still a great tackle, and… no one else. So Jacksonville went from 11-5 to 5-11, and wound up dead last in the division. And all of this was due to the fact their front office is just plain dumb.

3.) Firing Tom Coughlin

Yes, Tom Coughlin had 4 losing seasons in his last years as Jags head coach. But Bill Cowher and Chuck Noll also had losing seasons. What made them successful? The organization, the Pittsburgh Steelers, gave them time to work out the issues. Firing a coach almost never helps if he is remotely competent, and in this case, it was the wrong move.

Coughlin was hired in 1995 and quickly made the expansion team into a winner. In only his and the team’s second season, he led them to the AFC Championship Game. He continued on for six more seasons, and when he was fired after the 2002 season, he had an overall record of 68-60. That is definitely not a bad record, and over the next 6 years, Jack Del Rio led the team to a 50-46 overall record. So was the team more successful under Coughlin? Yes. And Let’s not forget he led an inferior New York Giants team to a Super Bowl in 2007. Once again, Jacksonville comes to regret a harebrain move.

2.) Poor Drafting Ability, Especially Amongst Wide Receivers

Reggie Williams. Matt Jones. Ernest Wilford. R. Jay Soward. Mike Walker. None of these guys turned out to be productive players, and none of them are still on the Jaguars. All told, the Jags haven’t had any real receiving threat since Jimmy Smith, and even he was a failed draft pick by the Cowboys in 1992. Which leads me to my next point…

1.) The Jags Do Not See the Point in Finding Real Wide Receivers

When Jerry Porter stole $30 million from Jacksonville before 2008, everyone knew they were desperate. Then again, we knew that already, because they had failed on three first round receivers before that had even happened. Then they traded for Troy Williamson, a failed first round pick of the Vikings. All told, Jacksonville hasn’t had a receiver pose any threat to any team since 2005 when Jimmy Smith retired. In a pass-happy NFL, this shows that Jacksonville is truly delusional, and in my eyes, it makes them the dumbest franchise in the NFL.