In Sync
By Luke Sims
The Jaguars will rely heavily on having everyone on the same page for the 2012 season. Learning a new offense is difficult, as is adjusting to a new coaching staff, but it looks like new head coach Mike Mularkey knows how to get everyone seeing the same things.
Mularkey has made a point of getting the players to ask questions, understand what needs to be done, and learning how to do things right. It isn’t just about making sure that the players are ready to compete, it’s also about making sure that the team is as disciplined as it can be heading into the season. Being disciplined is a lifestyle more than it is a directive. Discipline is a learned trait that influences everything you do. Disciple in the reason you get up to run a mile or two in the morning no matter how you feel, but it is also a conformity to a scheme or ideology.
In Jacksonville, that scheme is the Mularkey scheme.
Mularkey expects everyone to be in sync. While he says that the offense being installed is user-friendly, he knows that players can’t pick it up on day one, nor can they pick it up effectively unless they pick it together. Mularkey’s focus is so great that he expects uniform stretching and play performance,
"We want to look like a team that would like to win a championship, and the way you do that is you do things right,” he said. “Whether it’s stretching, lining up your helmets right or doing jumping jacks together as a team, I tell them, ‘There are 11 guys in that row. Why have one helmet out of whack? You can’t have one out of sync any time when you have 11 guys together, so let’s just do it."
That discipline is something that has lacked in recent years. The Jack Del Rio tended to focus more on trying to draw in some attention on the small market franchise during the offseason. A way to do that is to have fun drills that showcase individual skills. Mularkey’s approach is to get everyone doing the same things os that pieces and players are interchangeable and can perform all the tasks of the offensive scheme being installed. That type of reliable interchangeability is something gained from being in sync and learning how to be a disciplined unit.
It looks like Mularkey is the guy to lead and enforce that discipline and get the team on the right page.
– Luke N. Sims
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