Let’s just start by saying that yesterday’s game was a disgrace.

The Jaguars were awful in all phases of the game.

The O-Line was bad, Mathis get schooled, Garrard looked puzzled, Thomas made mistakes on Special Teams, and so on and so on.

Not only was the action on the field utterly disappointing but two Jaguars players had problems off the field.

Mike Sims-Walker missed a bed check on Friday night and was held out of the game. Quentin Groves got into an accident on the way to the airport and tried to flee the scene so he could catch his flight.

This is the worst Monday Morning that I can remember as a Jags fan.

I will collect my thoughts and put together a more detailed analysis later today.

Yes, yes, oh my god yes!

Here it is, almost two full days later and the game still hasn’t completly sunk in for me.  It’s hard to believe that these are the same Jaguars just two weeks removed from the throttling Arizona laid down, but as I breathe, I keep checking the scores and by god, it still says 37-17 Jaguars.

There is no way to say it other than the Jags simply put on a clinic on Sunday.  The game wasn’t even as close as the final score will have you believe as the Jags dominated ever facet of the game before a couple last ditch drives from Tennessee finally produced points.

Some observations:

Wide receiver is fixed.  With the emergence of Mike Sims-Walker as a legitimate number one target, Torry Holt still being a reliable option over the middle, and the sheer genius of the use of Mike Thomas, (more on this later) gone are the days of watching balls drop through over-paid draft picks’ hands like bricks.  David Garrard finally looks like a star quarterback worthy of his contract out there because – well, his balls are being caught.

Speaking of David Garrard, he’s playing the best football of his life right now.  He looks like a commander of the offense, he takes shots down the field, he has good pocket presence, he is absolutely fearless when it comes to taking hits.  Essentially, he’s making Del Rio look awfully smart for going with him in 2007, and he’s paying back that contract with his play right now.  I’ll be honest, in the draft I was really hoping to land Mark Sanchez, but David is playing at a pro-bowl level right now.  And I love it.

Oh man, were those Jaguar tight ends making plays down the seam?  Marcedes Lewis finally seems to have found the hands we supposedly drafted him for, and we all knew Ernest Wilford could catch.  Give Zach Miller a little more time to develop, and a position that was one of embarrassment for the Jags last year (sorry Estandia and Angulo) could turn into one of strength.

Our linebackers are really good.  Watching Daryl, Clint and Justin out there is like watching three men sharing one brain.  It’s a shame these guys play in Jacksonville.  Plug them in a higher market team, they would be on every highlight reel.  Have you noticed no one has been stretching the field on us with the running game?  Yeah.

The pass rush still needs work.  I wasn’t a big fan of the Derrick Harvey trade from day one, and I won’t use the dreaded ‘bust’ tag this early in his career, but he hasn’t done much of anything to put my mind at ease.  We have guys that are monster run-stuffers at the line of scrimmage, but so far no one has stepped up as that premier pass rusher.

Derek Cox is the real deal.  We all knew he would be picked on all year being a starting rookie corner, so of course he’s been beat a few times, but the kid doesn’t quit, and he positively flies to the ball on almost every play.

Dirk Koetter pencil-spanked Jeff Fischer and his defense this week.  The brilliant use of Mike Thomas on the reverse and screen game really stretched the field, and it really started to feel like we could run whatever play we wanted.

Future or no, it’s going to be hard to justify handing the job back to Eugene Monroe once he returns from illness.  Not saying I don’t love Monroe, he was my favorite player in the draft, and I thought the Jags were probably the luckiest team in the top 10 to be able to land him, but he still has to adjust to playing with his hand on the ground.  Tra Thomas obviously does not.  Ask Kyle Vanden Bosch.

But man, all the technical stuff aside, didn’t that win feel good?  Couldn’t you just feel the frustration from the Titans’ sideline as they looked on, aghast that the Jaguars, whom they had made a mockery of for so many years were squeezing the last realistic bit of life from their playoff hopes?  This is the kind of win that can get a young, ascending team on a roll.  If Mel Tucker can just find a way to get to the quarterback (easier said than done, I know.  That’s why he’s a defensive coordinator, and I blog) the sky is the limit for this team.  And you know the best part?  This is not on borrowed time.  We are a young team that is only going to get better as the year goes on, and I think we have proven that we can at least be competitive at any level.

Bring on the ‘hawks, baby.

Do you feel that?

I’m sure you do. It probably started right after the Houston win. You were probably sitting back at your favorite venue, letting the sweet taste of victory wash down your throat because, let’s face it, we haven’t had such a sweet tasting victory in a really long time, but something was wrong. When you close your eyes, do you get a sudden flash of a big, bushy mustache and sunglasses that would look right at home in a rerun of Magnum P.I.?

That’s because Jeff Fischer is coming to town, and he’s bringing his 0-3 Tennessee Titans with him.

Don’t let that record fool you. These Titans are still a very good team, loaded with talent. If any team can recover from an 0-3 start to make a playoff run, it’s this team. They have the talent, and every Jacksonville fan knows they have the coach. However… 0-4 is a very different story.

It won’t be easy, on paper, the Jags are terribly over matched, and by all means the Titans should win this game.

Hang on. That sounds familiar. In fact, it sounds a lot like the Jaguar teams of the past, when we were supposedly in our prime and the Titans were rebuilding from their salary cap hell. We were supposed to roll over them. We were supposed to be on our way to a deep post season run, and the Titans ruined many a good season for us.

Wouldn’t it be nice to return the favor just once? To really drive the nail into the coffin of this season in which they were super bowl favorites?

Again, it won’t be easy, but you know what? I like these Jaguars.

Gene Smith has built a different Jaguar team from what we’re used to. These aren’t the swaggering, pretty jocks of the Tom Coughlin era, nor are they the playground bullies who, even if they lost fight got their licks in from the first part of the Jack Del Rio era. No, these ave the kids you see in the playground who are already covered in mud because they have already been knocked down, but they’re still picking fights with everyone in the yard.

They kind of remind me of, say, the Tennessee Titans of old.

So come on Jacksonville, for those going to the game, let’s really put our voices behind it, because this game is a lot more than the difference between 2-2 or 1-3, this is a game of pride, let’s give them one good wallop they will remember. Let this be the Titans’ season that the Jaguars slammed the lid on.

Let’s go Jags.

So, occasionally when I make some bold pre-season prediction, it will come out to be.. well, not as true as it could have been. Ok, I admit it. I was wrong. Yes folks, it does happen from time to time, and let no one say your friendly neighborhood blogger is afraid to eat some crow.

This week, I’m afraid I owe Vikings head coach Brad Childress and a certain quasi-retired quarterback an apology. I was very astute in pointing out that Favre was obviously over the hill, not even close to being worth the $12 million dollars he would be earning this year, and for all intents and purposes was embodying everything sportsmanship and football was against. Ok, I still believe a lot of that stuff, but I certainly take back a lot of my venom, and it’s time to amend a little bit of my season prediction. Favre’s last minute game winning chuck against San Fran showed more arm and guts than I thought him capable of at this stage of his career.

Originally, I picked the Vikes to finish sub-.500. Obviously, at 3-0 this is looking kind of unlikely. I now pick them to finish on the sunny side, and possibly get a wild card berth. However, they will be one and done in the playoffs, and next year, will be in the market for a new head coach and quarterback. Here’s to hoping I don’t have to apologize for that one as well.

Now, just saying is all…

…but is there any starting quarterback in the league worse than Jake Delhomme? I’m not counting JaMarcus Russel or Brady Quinn, because I firmly feel their days are numbered, however, the Jake Delhomme era doesn’t seem to have an end in sight, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

Isn’t week three a little early to pull the plug on a quarterback you signed in the off season? Granted, Byron looked awful against the Giants, but his two games before that really weren’t that bad, and it’s not like he’s loaded with weapons.

Who gets the first overall draft pick, Cleveland or Washington?

Okay, I am going to be perfectly honest with you. On Saturday night, when Jeanne told me I would be writing for the awesome black and teal blog, I had kind of already started drafting a piece in my head that defended David Garrard’s performance. You know, no quarterback can perform under that kind of pressure, It’s takes a startling amount of accuracy to beam your receiver in the head, in the end zone, from thirty yards away, even if he can not, in fact catch swine flu at a bacon farm in Mexico. It didn’t occur to me that he would actually come out and have a fantastic game, and that the Jags would score their first win of the season in heroic fashion.

Garrard looked really sharp out there. There were a few balls batted down at the line of scrimmage that gave me cause for concern, but that was the only negative I could find. Now, on the long list of positives, we can go into his accuracy, his protection of the ball, his startling consistency, which is something that has been missing from the career of David Garrard from the get go, but has anyone else noticed this guy’s pocket presence has improved by leaps and bounds since he became a starting quarterback? I can still see in my head Garrard trying to take off as the pocket collapses only to fall right into James Harrison or Keith Bulluck. There were times over the past couple years where it never looked like he had any idea where the pressure was coming from, and although he was mobile, the blind-running usually resulted in a sack, or just having to give up and throw the ball away. I started to notice in the second half of the Arizona game last week that David has gotten much better at extending the play and finding ways to deliver the ball on the run.

However, being able to deliver the ball doesn’t really help you if you keep insisting on throwing the ball five yards shy of the first down marker on third down. Watching that gave me fits over the last couple of games, it seemed a pretty rote formula. Third and long, short completion, stuffed, punt. Thankfully, I didn’t see any of that against Houston today, and save for a couple hiccups in the first half, the Jags were actually real efficient on third down.

The ball was also spread around well, with a lot of success. It was nice to see a receiver not named Torry coming down with catches over the middle and at the sidelines. The artist formerly known as Mike Walker had a big game, (apologize all of you who wanted to cut him during pre-season! You know who you are!) as did newly-activated rookie Mike Thomas, who could be the next Steve Smith. (Yeah, you just read that.)

It was nice to see this Jaguar youth movement show some real progress. Although Eben Britton was mysteriously absent, Eugene Monroe was a big part of keeping the Texans sack-less, Terrance Knighton may be emerging as our best run-stuffer, and Derek Cox is near the ball on literally every play. In Gene we trust, and maybe, just maybe, we can hold off on some of those ‘Draft Tebow’ bumper stickers, huh? What do you say?