An Eight Win Season

Optimistic Homer here, Terry asked me to provide some counter balance to all the negative talk about the Jaguars. Personally, I hate the talk about a high draft pick and I can see an eight win season.  My logic says the Jaguars had five wins last year and let 3 of them slip away (Minnesota, Oakland and Houston). I believe this Jaguar team is better coached with better players. The new players will help, and key players are returning that were missing last year.  The situation is in much better shape.

So where do the eight wins come from? I don’t know specifically, but I can guess.

To gain eight wins, the Jaguars must take five wins from these seven games:

Kansas City Chiefs, Oakland Raiders, St Louis Rams, San Diego Chargers, Arizona Cardinals and two games with the Tennessee Titans.

Can you see five wins in there? I can. They should have taken two from Tennessee last year. They had Oakland beat as well. St. Louis is in a major transition and Arizona was actually a worse team than the Jaguars at the end of the season. Kansas City or San Diego are vulnerable and nothing to be afraid of. A good Jaguar team can take five of these games.

Well that is five wins, now they need two wins from these four games:

Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, and two games with the Indianapolis Colts.

Do you see two wins in there?  The Bills and the Browns look very improved and the Colts are fighting back. These are not easy games. Why do I think there are two wins in here? The Browns, the Bill and the Colts are late season games. If the team is truly getting better every day, there are a lot of days between now and these games. If you see an upward trajectory in performance, these are winnable games for them.

OK, that is seven wins, where is the eighth win coming from? It is coming from the upset win. Every NFL week an upset occurs. Why can’t the Jaguars have one of these? They can. They need one upset in this series:

Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, and two games against the Houston Texans.

Do I see a win in these games? No. That is why it would be an upset. Let’s count one upset in the season. Now we have eight wins.

For me, this scenario is not hard to believe: The Jaguars beat Kansas City, Oakland, St. Louis, Arizona and Tennessee. They beat Buffalo and the Colts. They upset Houston.  That is a very possible eight win season.

– Optimistic Homer