An Afternoon Beer with Andrew Hofheimer
Alrighty folks, we’re gonna try a new idea out here to generate some more thought and discussion here at Black and Teal. The fascinating thing about the internet is the communities that are formed of people all around the world with like interests or internet “tribes”, as some commentators on social media are beginning to call them. Just here at this site, the three standing correspondents are a valid example of this – Zoltan Paksa is from Budapest, Hungary; Luke Sims is from Minnesota and is currently attending school in Montana; and I am a Jacksonville native currently employed in Atlanta. But we all have a passion for Jaguars football and like many of you, seek information about our team and the NFL from various venues and connect with each other in a (ever increasing!) variety of ways. I assume many of you were loyal “Ask Vic” followers when Mr. Ketchman was the senior editor for Jaguars.com and I am sure many of you have followed him to Green Bay’s website, as I have, because he continues to be a great source of knowledge and tradition (I think he even invented the forward pass). I also assume that many of you tune into what is now the “O-Zone” on Jaguars.com, written by Vic’s successor, John Oehser.
As our forefather here at Black and Teal, the great Terry O’Brien once said,
"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."
I believe that very much and that article is the reason I first contacted Terry to start writing for this site. In the spirit of friends gathering in the “online pub”, I would like to embrace the common information that we all read, ponder, and discuss on a daily basis. We are not trying to pretend that Jaguars.com or Ask Vic or Big Cat Country or any other source does not exist. We do not try to separate ourselves from them because that’s not our intention. Our intention is to talk Jaguars football.
With that in mind, I would like to start taking the best question/answer from both Ask Vic and the O-Zone each day and adding a little of my own opinion here at Black and Teal. I hope you’ll add your opinion, as well.
Today’s questions/answers/insight after the jump…
From today’s O-Zone:
"Renee Davis from Jacksonville Beach, FL: Why I will always be a Jaguar fan? Not the missed kick, not the win in Denver. It was the feeling with the 20,000+ that showed up at the stadium at 1 a.m. and Dave Widell at the mic saying “Jacksonville, do you believe in miracles?” That was one incredible feeling. Maybe winning a Super Bowl would be better or maybe not, we’ll see. John: I hope you are a female, Renee, and glad you are from Jacksonville. That seems to matter. But in reference to your question, winning the Super Bowl might not be a significantly better feeling. The ’96 playoff run was the first taste of NFL success for the franchise and the town, and came in a time when the franchise was young and there were no expectations. Hard to match that feeling."
The childlike excitement of that season was a beautiful memory for many of us fans – I remember the disappointment when Morten Anderson lined up that 29 yard kick which would surely mean the end of a charmed second half of the season that saw the young Jaguars seemingly unable to lose. I remember seeing the kick go through (bad vantage point – those goal posts are always tricky from the side) and then realizing that the fans in the North End Zone were going ballistic not with anger, but excitement and suddenly I was wrapped up in disbelief in the entirely opposite direction. I remember the hard-fought playoff wins and the slow attrition of the AFC Championship game. I don’t remember cheering for the team when they got back to Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, because I was 10 years old and I probably wasn’t allowed to stay up that late. But I certainly remember the magic of that season and knowing that the Jaguars had become a special part of my town.
I disagree with John, though. A Super Bowl would be just as magical and probably more-so. I think about that a lot actually. How much it would mean to me – I mean, if the Jaguars won the Super Bowl next year (hypothetically), how would you not be completely overcome with emotion? How far have we been since those first few years where we built an unbelievably high level of expectation? Right now, we struggle to go to the playoffs two years in a row. Our fans call for our quarterback’s and our coach’s head on a platter every week. We are terrorized by the media, the general public, and Roger Goodell himself, who keep threatening to take away the one team Jacksonville has and for many of us, the one thing in this world that we love unconditionally. When we win the Super Bowl, you can bet there will be tears on my face and two middle fingers in the air.