A.G. Gancarski
Great expectations are greeting the Jacksonville Jaguars this season, if the words of owner Shad Khan are any indication.
“Make no mistake, this is the best team assembled by the Jacksonville Jaguars, ever,” Khan said this week. “Best players, best coaches. But most importantly, let’s prove it by winning now.”
Khan’s audacious statement contradicts the read of Vegas, which suggests the team will be lucky to finish .500.
Bet MGM has the Jaguars’ win total set at 8.5.
It also seems to diminish the teams from the 20th century, which had deep playoff runs ending in the AFC Title Game in 1996 and 1999 under Wayne Weaver’s ownership. The 2017 “Sacksonville” squad also advanced to the title game, and was competitive through three quarters against Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and the New England Patriots, with a controversial officiating call (“Myles Jack wasn’t down!) seen as sealing the Jags’ fate that year.
Khan’s ownership has led to putrid on-field performance. Even after Doug Pederson guided the team to 9-8 records the last two seasons, the Jags are still at 60-135 since he bought the team from Weaver last decade.
That is, notes the New York Times, good for 31st place among owners. Only Josh Harris, who bought the terminally dysfunctional Washington squad last year, is worse off.
Though the Jaguars haven’t won much on the field, there is reason for optimism.
Quarterback Trevor Lawrence is signed to a long-term deal, though it’s anyone’s guess if the team’s collection of turnstiles on the offensive line will do to the Clemson product what the Colts did to Andrew Luck.
Most importantly, though, the team got its demands met on a stadium renovation plan, which saw just one no vote in the City Council for $775 million of taxpayer money for the build.
One comment
Nope never nada
August 31, 2024 at 3:20 pm
If by best ever you mean total criminal
Scam where taxpayers have no say in being robbed and their city bankrupted by billionaire welfare, where taxpayers money is spent to enrich a privately owned corporation for private gains that most people paying it can’t afford, where the mayor refused to even allow a referendum and the city council rubber stamped it and they all get to party on the yacht, and oh by the way if you didn’t get your tax bill yet the taxes ARE going up both on mils and maxing out, even while property values are down, surprise surprise. Our property lost 12% in value due to chronic neglect and disinvestment by the city, increased flooding and crime due to lack of policing, but our taxes up nearly $1000. By the way how’s that DCPS increase working for you? Did your kid’s grade A performing school get shut down yet? Ours did, no teacher pay increases and just lost our kid’s perfect little neighborhood school and the next one over, and they want to send her to a failing moldy falling apart school in an unsafe area of town she could never walk to, across from liquor stores and dispensaries and gun shops and drug dealers. Yep, welcome to Duval. Then yes, if that’s what he means then I agree. Best robbery ever. I’d rather just get run over directly. You voted for it. Go Jags. To H3ll.