2011 NFL Team Preview
Jacksonville Jaguars
2010 Record: 8-8
2010 Record ATS (Against the Spread): 9-7
Outlook:
I like Jack Del Rio. After watching him on HBO's "Hard Knocks" a few years ago, you know that he is a very passionate coach that he really cares about his guys. And I believe that he does have winning head coach potential. However, I do believe that his time in Jacksonville has been up. In fact we are surprised that he still has a job with this team. After going 5-11 in 2008, 7-9 in 2009, and 8-8 in 2010 we feel that the last three years have all been failures and even though the record appears to be going up every year it is purely not enough to validate his employment. Last year they were 8-5 with three games left in the season and if they just won one of those games they would have been in the playoffs. They lost all three games in a monumental collapse. They lost to Indy, Washington, and Houston respectively. The ownership decided to roll on one more year with Jack because these are all his players and they are very loyal to him. If they don't start the first half of the season with a winning record, they will fire him mid season. That is for sure.
Strengths: They have a great running attack behind stout RB Maurice Jones-Drew. The team as a whole ranked third in the league in rushing attempts (512) and rushing yards (2,395). Passing was also a strong point. QB David Garrard had good numbers with 2,734 yards passing as well as 23 TD's vs. only 14 interceptions.
Weakness: Defense. The Jacksonville team finished the season with the sixth worst run stopping defense and the fifth worse in yards allowed in the entire league. The secondary is also really bad allowing 8.3 yards average per pass.
Betting Prognosis: It will be hard to tell when to bet the Jacksonville Jaguars. We don't feel that they will be a very good team this year so it is really pick and choose your games for and /or against them. Will they start strong only fall apart like last year? We don't know. Betting opinions on this team will vary from week to week.
Key Matchups:
Week 1 vs. Tennessee - Perhaps one of the only teams worse than Jacksonville this year. Jax should win this game but don't bet on it.
Week 2 at Jets - how badly they get beat by the Jets will help you decide which games to bet for or against them later in the year.
