Understanding BlackandTeal

I checked the latest statistics and we have had over 3,000 different visitors to BlackandTeal this month in August. That is great. We welcome all of you.  So before the season starts I wanted to write a little bit about what you can expect from us here.

The real media likes to throw a barb our way once in awhile saying we aren’t real media. They feel compelled to point that out. They don’t have to, we already know that. BlackandTeal is simply a fan site and nothing more. We are the modern internet version of meeting for drinks at a bar and talking Jaguars. We are here as fans and for fans. I am nothing more than a guy with a ticket and a camera. Zoltan lives in Budapest Hungary. Luke is from the Great White North. You, the readers, are in Iraq, or South Africa, or just down the road. We have a reach that extends worldwide. We are glad to be here for you.

BlackandTeal is not trying to “break” stories or news. We do not have access to the locker room after games nor are we invited to press conferences. We are fine with that. We simply report on what we see and speculate on that. What we want to do is provide good thought provoking dialog about our team. That is where you come in. Your comments provide as much content as we do. We are here to simply start the conversation.

Big Cat Country is a fantastic site with more access than we have. As such, they provide a lot more details than we do. Good for them. I love the site. They do a good job. We try to be different. We try to provide depth in thinking and look for angles on stories not covered by the Times Union, BCC, or other places. As such, we also try to keep the dialog rich and respectful. We don’t like the discourse frequently found on the Jaguar message board. We don’t want to go “down there”.

We believe football is fun and being a fan is fun. We try to keep it at a level where people feel comfortable to read and to comment. When the season starts, we will be at the games. We will post what we see. If we see people messing up, we say it. When we see people performing at a high level, we say it. We root for our team.

The FanBased network has a lot of good writers covering all the teams. We will talk to them and bring you the other side of the story as best we can. You will meet many of them during the year.

So enjoy yourself and join us when you can. We will be here and are waiting to hear from you. We believe the best Jaguar football is yet to be played and are waiting for it to happen.  Thank you to all of you. We are going to have fun this year.

– Terry O’Brien