Gardner Minshew Wants To Party
I feel like Doug Marrone saw Bill O’Brien personally sending the Texans into hell and then told Gardner to hold his beer. What are the Jags doing?
Yannick Ngakoue has been disgruntled for a while, so that trade wasn’t completely out of the blue. He proclaimed he didn’t want to play for Jacksonville, got in a fight with Tony Khan on twitter, and then eventually got franchise tagged anyway. He ended up on Minnesota for a 2nd and a conditional 5th round pick. He actually gave up close to 6 million dollars in the trade. He thought getting out of Jacksonville was worth 6 million dollars. Rough, but not out of nowhere. Dude was clearly not happy.
Then they released Leonard Fournette!……..??? Fournette was still on his rookie contract for another year, he was actually a productive back last season, and Minshew needs whatever help he can get. Why cut Fournette now? What good does this do? Are the Jags Tanking for Trevor? Collapsing for Clemson? Lusting for Lawrence? When the news broke, part of me wondered what I had missed out on to cause this result. But after checking the general vibes of the internet it seems I was not alone in my confusion. Everyone seems perplexed about this one. The best I can find are rumors that he wasn’t that liked, but those kind of stories always follow a surprising release. It feels like damage control by the team, even if it is true.
So what the hell are the Jags doing? Minshew is easily now heading into one of the worst situations a new QB could get stuck in. After his breakout rookie year (which was mostly just shock that a 6th round nobody at QB was actually alright) he’s in for a rough ride. I don’t know what about this team is still good. The AFCCG squad that was a half of football away from a Super Bowl is basically gone now. The only name on that defense that I recognize from the good squad is Myles Jack. That team was so good, arguably a QB away, and now look at them.
I don’t buy the meme that he’s lusting for Lawrence. If the Jags get the #1 pick he very likely will not have a job by the time the draft happens. He’s on the hot seat right now. Coughlin is gone, and the current guard feels tenuous, so there’s no real incentive for Marrone to throw in the towel when if he wants to keep his job he’s going to have to win anything he can. Maybe he’s banking on the weird mulligan Covid season? Maybe he has job security we don’t know about? Maybe he wants to get fired. He is the guy who bailed on Buffalo, after all.
There doesn’t seem to be many reasons to give the Jags any mind this season, but you never know. Maybe Gardner will be just that fun. Likely it’ll just be a toilet bowl finish in the division. I don’t even have high hopes that the Jags will weather the pandemic well, they are in one of the worst places in the country for it. The NFL has done a better job than expected keeping things controlled for now, but we’ll see what happens when actual games start and teams have to travel.
So as for that hover text… I have decided he has been misspelling his own name and it’s actually Minewsh. Much easier to pronounce, if not spell. This lets me then imagine him hanging out with The Torpedo from that one episode of Bob’s Burgers. Yes, the Minewsh and the Skadootch.
This all but confirms what I’ve thought since the NCAA player movement started and the NCAA granted another year of eligibility. Trevor Lawerence will return to Clemson next season over playing for the Jags.
The sad Jag watermark on the last panel got me 🙂 🙂
Fournette is a starting caliber back, but for a guy whose reputation is for power, the Jaguars basically avoided using him in short yardage and goal line situations since halfway through his rookie season. He had five touchdowns of less than three yards in his first four games and something like three in the 2.75 seasons since. He’s simply not worth the contract a top five pick gets. On the other hand, the Jags burned $4M in cash and $6M in cap space by cutting him, so they must have wanted him gone for reasons other than underperforming his draft slot.
They are obvioulsy tanking. I also like to say losing for lawrence.
Didn’t fournette have a couple of locker room kerfuffles like missing meetings, etc? The general vibe I got was that he just wasn’t a good locker room presence and they were ready to be done with him. Even Marrone said they tried to trade him and couldn’t get any takers, so like no team wanted him at his current salary.
Doesn’t sound like Fournette had a lot of friends to be honest…
Dave! 1st: be well.
2nd: it’s so obvious. Hyanacats are ousting every guy who can be expensive 3 years from now. Meanwhile they plan to stack cheap talents from the draft. And 3 years from now they will sign Brady to construct the 4th Deathstar. (Tampa just built the 3rd)
His fantasy owners liked him.
That’s why it’s a mystery for me why everyone thinks he sucked. He produced in the stat sheet and was a productive back on my team.
I don’t know why the Jags do what they do but as a Colts fan I love every minute of it.
Tennessee is somehow the best run team in this shitshow of a division. Houston looks like us during the mid 2010s, horrible management relying on a handful of stars to bail them out week after week. Jacksonville is Jacksonville and essentially went from the 19th overall pick (what the raiders offered for Ngakoue) to a pick probably in the 50s or maybe even 60s as the Vikings are probably making the playoffs, all because they wouldn’t pull the trigger on a good offer. I’m biased in favor of Indy and think we’re definitely run better under Ballard, but still gotta account for all those years under Grigson, plus I’m still scratching my head over keeping both Rivers and Brissett on roster. Rivers isn’t getting us to a Super Bowl so why sign him? He’s just going to be a bridge QB like Brissett would have been. Or even if you do think Rivers still has it and that last year was a result of a bad o-line with the Chargers, why keep Brissett when he has virtually the same cap hit as Rivers? Trade him and use that cap space to sign Clowney or some other big name FA.
Oh yeah and the whole Fournette thing too. Their failure with Ngakoue was the more embarrassing blunder in my opinion. They probably should have gotten something for Fournette but it’s very possible no team bit on trading, and past the top 3 or 4 running backs in the league at a given time, they aren’t worth dealing with bad locker room presence.
And now they’re trading away cheap, useful players on rookie contracts. What the hell is going on down there?
Mmm
That AFC Champion Jags team was super “toxic” as the people put it, good riddance. now if the Colts can just nuke themselves.
Jacksonville is going away from the Coughlin style power backs of old and more towards a committee of situational specialist. Also there is more young talent on the team than everyone outside of it is aware of (DJ Chark, Shenault Jr., James Robinson, Josh Allen).
Maybe Minshew Magic is real; at least the positivity of it is real and that is what Jax staff is going for at the sake of all else. If you are not bought into the belief that you can win in Jacksonville then you must go because negativity is toxic–especially to a group of young unprovens. Afterall, these young guys are the beginning of the new “Influenced Generation”.