Jaguars

Jacksonville Jaguars: 2013 Week 6 NFL Power Rankings (#32)

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Power Rankings, 2013 Week 6 NFL Power Rankings, Jaguars, Uncategorized

Last week: 32 (+0)

Record: 0-5

The Jaguars essentially waved the wave flag on this season and on Blaine Gabbert when they traded Eugene Monroe to the Ravens. Their goal this season was to evaluate Blaine Gabbert with a better offensive line, after drafting Luke Joeckel 2nd overall. However, trading Monroe just to get something for him before he became a free agent this off-season, gives up on that goal. It was the right move and it gave Luke Joeckel a chance to take the blindside spot he’s supposed to hold for the next 10 years, but he broke his ankle and is out for the season. The season is done. Blaine Gabbert is done.

Week 5 Studs

WR Cecil Shorts

Week 5 Duds

QB Blaine Gabbert

LT Cameron Bradfield

RG Uche Nwaneri

RE Jason Babin

LE Tyson Alualu

MLB Paul Posluszny

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

Jacksonville Jaguars: 2013 Week 5 NFL Power Rankings (#32)

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Power Rankings, 2013 Week 5 NFL Power Rankings, Jaguars, Uncategorized

Last week: 32

Record 0-4

The Jaguars have been so bad through 4 games that I don’t think the word horrendous is even strong enough. They’ve been outscored 129 to 31 and even that figure is inflated by garbage time. If the Seahawks, against whom they scored 17 of their 31 points, hadn’t taken their starters out in the 3rd quarter, their differential would be even worse. They move the chains on just 58% of downs, as opposed to 78% from their opponents, a -20% differential. Only the Giants, -15%, as even close to how bad they are, and 3rd worst is Tampa Bay at -8%. Fortunately, I don’t think it’s possible to be THIS bad for the entirety of the season. This is just an especially brutal stretch for this team and getting Justin Blackmon back this week will help. It doesn’t mean they’ll win more than a game or two, but they should cover at least a few spreads this season, possibly starting with a ridiculous 12 point spread in St. Louis this week.

Week 4 Studs

RE Jeremy Mincey

CB Will Blackmon

Week 4 Duds

LG Will Rackley

FS Josh Evans

SS John Cyprien

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

Jacksonville Jaguars trade OT Eugene Monroe to the Baltimore Ravens

stevenlourie Jaguars, Ravens, Uncategorized

Trade for Jaguars: The Jaguars just sold a franchise left tackle for pennies on the dollar (multiple 3rd day picks). Ordinarily, that’s an awful deal, but Monroe was heading into free agency this off-season and the Jaguars are so awful. It’s totally believable that they knew they wouldn’t be able to re-sign him after the season and it’s not like they’re doing anything this year. Luke Joeckel, the 2nd overall pick, looks to be their left tackle of the future. Still, this is barely more than they would have gotten in compensatory picks if they had lost him in free agency and it’s a big loss for the fan base. The Joeckel pick looks like just a horizontal move at this point.

Grade: C

Trade for Ravens: This is absolute steal for the Ravens. Monroe doesn’t get a lot of attention in Jacksonville, but he’s one of the better left tackles in the game and a huge upgrade over Bryant McKinnie, both short-term and, if they want him, long-term. He was ProFootballFocus’ 15th ranked offensive tackle in 2012 and 6th ranked offensive tackle in 2011. He and right tackle Michael Oher will be free agents this off-season, so the Ravens will have some decisions to make, but they’re competitive enough now to be buyers, especially at such a cheap price.

Grade: A

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

Jacksonville Jaguars at St. Louis Rams: 2013 Week 5 NFL Pick

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Picks, 2013 Week 5 NFL Picks, Jaguars, Rams, Uncategorized

Jacksonville Jaguars (0-4) at St. Louis Rams (1-3)

The Jaguars are +12 here in St. Louis. No one is THAT bad right? Well, so far, the Jaguars have been THAT bad. They have been beyond horrendous offensively, converting just 58% of 1st and 10s for a subsequent set of first downs. That means on 42% of their 1st and 10s, they didn’t move the chains. Defensively, they aren’t good either, but they aren’t horrendous, surrendering a subsequent set of first downs 78% of the time.

However, I don’t expect the Jaguars to be THAT bad all season. They’re having a horrendous stretch right now, but I don’t think they’ll be all-time bad for the entirety of the season. Some of it will be randomness and the fact that no one is this bad forever. Some of it will be the return of Justin Blackmon, who returns this week from a 4 game suspension and could have a Josh Gordon-esque impact on this offense. They won’t be a good offense by any stretch of the imagination, but that 58% number won’t be THAT terrible all season.

Given that, I don’t think they really deserve to be 12 point underdogs here. The Rams aren’t very good at all either. They are moving the chains on 69% of opportunities, as opposed to 76% for their opponents. In terms of differential, they are 29th in the NFL. Their retooled offensive line isn’t playing up to expectations. Rodger Saffold is out, while veteran Scott Wells has been awful at center. Chris Williams continues to prove he’s not a starting caliber player, while even Jake Long has not been the franchise left tackle they thought they were getting.

Rookie Tavon Austin, who was supposed to invigorate Bradford’s receiving corps, has looked like, well a rookie, while Jared Cook has been pretty hit or miss. Defensively, Chris Long and James Laurinaitis, who have been signed to long extensions recently, aren’t living up to their salaries. The same is true of Cortland Finnegan, who was signed to a 50 million dollar deal last off-season. He’s suddenly morphed into the worst cornerback in the NFL, allowing 16 of 19 for 248 yards and 3 touchdowns before getting “hurt” against the 49ers.

They don’t deserve to be 12 point favorites over anyone. One of the most powerful trends in betting is known as the six and six trend, meaning teams who finish with 6 wins or fewer are 25-69 ATS as favorites of 6 or more since 2002. There are two issues with this trend. One, it’s very rare (it only happened 7 times all last season, going 2-5 ATS). Two, it’s even rarer that a situation will come up in which you can confidently use the trend. The Eagles were 8.5 point favorites in Cleveland last year week1 (they didn’t cover), but there was at the time there was no way to know that the Eagles would finish 6-10 or worse.

The Rams could easily go 6-10 or worse after a 1-3 start, given how they’ve been playing. I’m a little wary of using this to pick the Jaguars since I did it against the Raiders and it backfired, but this line is double what that line was. There’s a lot of room to work with and I don’t think the Jaguars will be quite as bad this week as they’ve been thus far this season, as I mentioned earlier. Teams always cover at least 3 or 4 times per season, no matter how bad they are. This could easily be one of those times for the Jaguars.

Other trends favor the Jaguars as well. Since 2002, teams are 36-18 ATS off of back-to-back losses by 21 or more. Teams tend to be overlooked, undervalued, and embarrassed in this situation. Both teams are actually in that situation this week, but I don’t think the Rams are being undervalued and I highly doubt they’ll be overlooked given how bad the Jaguars are. Going off of that, teams are just 2-11 ATS since 1989 as 10+ point favorites off of 3+ straight losses. It’s a limited sample size, but the fact that this situation happens so rarely is important in of itself. This is an overly inflated spread. I don’t want to put too much confidence in Jacksonville, but they should be the right side.

St. Louis Rams 20 Jacksonville Jaguars 13

Pick against spread: Jacksonville +12

Confidence: Medium

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

Indianapolis Colts at Jacksonville Jaguars: 2013 Week 4 NFL Pick

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Picks, 2013 Week 4 NFL Picks, Colts, Jaguars, Uncategorized

Indianapolis Colts (2-1) at Jacksonville Jaguars (0-3)

I was shocked that not only did the Colts beat the 49ers, but they beat them handily in San Francisco. Previously in the Andrew Luck era, they were sweating out close wins against bad teams and getting blown out by good teams, especially on the road. Last year, they played 7 games against teams who finished .500 or better. They went 3-4 in those games, which isn’t awful, but those wins came by 3, 3, and 12, while the losses came by 20, 35, 12, and 15. They went as good as their 11-5 record would have suggested last season, because of all of those blowout losses (plus a 35-9 loss to the freaking Jets!) and because they had 7 wins by 7 points or less against teams that won 7 or fewer games.

They were especially bad on the road last season, going 4-5 on the road with a point differential of -76 and an opponent’s overall record of 64-80. They didn’t really looked any better this season before last week, barely beating the Raiders at home and then losing to the Dolphins at home. However, unless the 49ers are significantly worse than we expect them to be, the Colts just blew out a good team on the road.

It’s very possible that was just an aberration. Yes, they did add Trent Richardson, but his impact (13/35/1) was minimal on that specific game. The reason they won last week is because they dominated the 49ers with their offensive line and secondary, which is something they had never really done before. I certainly see them as a better team as I did a week ago, but I’m not totally sold on them. What if they once again struggle to blow out an inferior opponent here in Jacksonville? The Jaguars beat the Colts by 3 and lost by 17 last season, meaning the Colts only outscored the Jaguars, on average, by 7 points per game last season. The Colts also only beat the 2-14 Chiefs by 7 in Kansas City last year. It shouldn’t surprise you if the same thing happens here.

The Colts are also in a bad spot coming off of a huge upset last week. Teams are 45-66 ATS since 1989 coming off of a win as double digit underdogs. I’m not that confident in Jacksonville for three reasons though. The first one is the possibility that the Colts are a legitimately improved team over last season and the first 2 weeks of this season. The second is the possibility that Trent Richardson has a huge game against a poor Jacksonville run defense and this time around becomes the reason why the Colts blow out an opponent. The third is just the possibility that the Jaguars are so terrible that the Colts won’t have to be an improved team to blow them out. I do feel Jacksonville is the right side though, with the Colts’ lack of a consistent history of blowing out inferior opponents, particularly on the road.

Indianapolis Colts 23 Jacksonville Jaguars 17

Pick against spread: Jacksonville +9

Confidence: None

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

Jacksonville Jaguars: 2013 Week 4 NFL Power Rankings (#32)

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Power Rankings, 2013 Week 4 NFL Power Rankings, Jaguars, Uncategorized

Last week: 32

Give the Jaguars credit. They almost covered the spread as 19 point underdogs in the first half. And yeah, they drafted a punter over Russell Wilson, but he was used 7 times against the Seahawks, while Russell Wilson was sitting on the bench by the middle of the 3rd quarter. It’s back to Blaine Gabbert this week for the Jaguars, but it won’t matter. The worst thing they can do at this point is win because they are the clear favorites for Teddy Bridgewater at this point. Maybe that was their plan all along, draft the best available in 2013, cut big contracts, and build for 2014 and beyond.

Week 3 Studs

None

Week 4 Studs

QB Chad Henne

TE DJ Williams

LG Will Rackley

SS John Cyprien

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

Jacksonville Jaguars: 2013 Week 3 NFL Power Rankings (#32)

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Power Rankings, 2013 Week 3 NFL Power Rankings, Jaguars, Uncategorized

Last week: 31

The Jaguars are the obvious pick as the worst team in the NFL after losing to the Raiders. Fortunately, the prize is a franchise quarterback like Teddy Bridgewater. The Jaguars need someone like that badly. Chad Henne is better than Blaine Gabbert, but only by default and after amassing barely over 100 yards of total offense before garbage time against the Raiders, the Jaguars have a chance to be historically bad offensively and it could get even worse if the start turning the ball over (only 2 turnovers in their first 2 games). Things might get better as Justin Blackmon and Marcedes Lewis return, but probably not much. Rookie right tackle Luke Joeckel has not been the instant contributor they were expecting him to be as the 2nd overall pick has struggled thus far in his career, possibly because he’s playing in an unfamiliar position at right tackle.

Week 2 Studs

None

Week 2 Duds

RB Jordan Todman

LT Eugene Monroe

LG Will Rackley

RE Jason Babin

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

Jacksonville Jaguars at Oakland Raiders: 2013 Week 2 NFL Pick

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Picks, 2013 Week 2 NFL Picks, Jaguars, Raiders, Uncategorized

Jacksonville Jaguars (0-1) at Oakland Raiders (0-1)

One of the most powerful trends in betting is known as the six and six trend, meaning teams who finish with 6 wins or fewer are 25-69 ATS as favorites of 6 or more since 2002. There are two issues with this trend. One, it’s very rare (it only happened 7 times all last season, going 2-5 ATS). Two, it’s even rarer that a situation will come up in which you can confidently use the trend. The Eagles were 8.5 point favorites in Cleveland last year week1 (they didn’t cover), but there was at the time there was no way to know that the Eagles would finish 6-10 or worse.

This is a situation where I think we can safely say that a team is going to go 6-10 or worse with the Raiders favored by 6 points here at home against the Raiders. Sure, the Raiders kept it close with the Colts last week, hanging within 4 points on the road of a team that went 11-5 last year. However, that’s a little misleading. The Colts won 7 games by 7 points or fewer against 7 win or worse teams last season. They’re not as good as their record suggests. That included the 2-14 2012 Chiefs and they also lost to the 2-14 2012 Jaguars. The Raiders’ near win in Indianapolis is not a sign that they won’t be as bad as everyone thought they would be at the beginning of the season.

The Jaguars aren’t good either. In fact, these are probably the two worst teams in football and by a wide margin, but the Raiders don’t deserve to be favored by 6+ against anyone. If you played this game under perfectly normal circumstances 100 times, the Raiders would probably win on average by about 3 points and this line should be -3 (which would suggest that these teams are equal and that Oakland is at home). However, these aren’t perfectly normal circumstances. The Raiders are also in a bad spot as favorites of 3 or more are 19-40 ATS since 1989 after being dogs of 7+ and before being dogs of 7+. Not only do the Raiders not deserve to be big favorites here, they also could view this as a breather week, especially after last week and especially with a trip to Denver on the horizon next week.

The Jaguars also are upgrading their quarterback situation this week, though not by their decision as Blaine Gabbert is out with injury. Gabbert was miserable last week in a 28-2 home loss, completing just 16 of 35 for 121 yards and 2 interceptions without a score, but even worse is that just 22 of his yards came through the air. The rest were after the catch. Chad Henne isn’t great either, but he was a noticeable upgrade last season, completing 53.9% of his passes for an average of 6.8 YPA, 11 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions, while Gabbert completed 58.3% of his passes for an average of 6.0 YPA, 9 touchdowns, and 6 interceptions.

Henne is at least capable of getting the ball to #1 receiver Cecil Shorts, who managed just 4 catches for 30 yards last week because of Blaine Gabbert under center and Brandon Flowers draped all over him. He doesn’t have either of these things this week as the Raiders’ secondary is one of the worst in the NFL and Henne is under center. In 6 starts in which Cecil Shorts and Chad Henne started together last season, Shorts caught 35 passes for 532 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Finally, the Jaguars are in a good spot coming off such a poor performance last week. Teams are 39-25 ATS since 1989 after games in which they either didn’t score or only scored on a safety like the Jaguars did last week. Teams tend to be undervalued and overlooked in this situation. The Jaguars are certainly undervalued as 6 point underdogs against a horrible Oakland team. I’m pretty confident in the Jaguars covering this week.

Oakland Raiders 24 Jacksonville Jaguars 23

Pick against spread: Jacksonville +6

Confidence: High

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

Jacksonville Jaguars: 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings (#31)

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Power Rankings, 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings, Jaguars, Uncategorized

The Jaguars were essentially shut out in their opener, only scoring on a safety. Kansas City is a tough defense, but the fact is that Blaine Gabbert remains one of, if not the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL. He completed just 16 of 35 for 121 yards and 2 interceptions without a score, but even worse is that just 22 of his yards came through the air. The rest were after the catch. Gabbert is out with an injury and will be replaced with the slightly superior Chad Henne this week as the Jaguars head to Oakland for what will be one of their best chances to win a game and one of the least interesting games of the season. The Jaguars started Gabbert because they wanted to evaluate him further, but his injury isn’t allowing them to do that, though they might have seen enough after week 1.

Week 1 Studs

None

Week 1 Duds

QB Blaine Gabbert

DT Roy Miller

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

Kansas City Chiefs at Jacksonville Jaguars: 2013 Week 1 NFL Pick

stevenlourie 2013 Week 1 NFL Picks, Chiefs, Jaguars, Uncategorized

Kansas City Chiefs (0-0) at Jacksonville Jaguars (0-0)

The Chiefs were no ordinary 2-14 team. They had 6 Pro-Bowlers last year. That might sound baffling, but it’s not. Only Eric Berry and maybe Tamba Hali (who had a down year) didn’t deserve it, but they could have easily been replaced by Brandon Flowers and Justin Houston. They have 8 of my top-200 players, significantly above average (Dwayne Bowe, Jamaal Charles, Branden Albert, Jon Asamoah, Derrick Johnson, Justin Houston, Tamba Hali, Brandon Flowers).

Unfortunately for them, football is a team game, not a contest of who has the highest amount of good players. This team was the perfect example of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole. If you’re as poorly coached and poorly quarterbacked as the Chiefs and lose the turnover battle at a near record rate, you’re not going to win a lot of games. I don’t care how many talented players you have.

Because they were no ordinary 2-14 team, the Chiefs took a different approach to the off-season than most teams coming off of seasons with similar records do. Instead of rebuilding, the Chiefs acted as contenders, bringing back their top two free agents Dwayne Bowe and Branden Albert on a lucrative multi-year deal and the franchise tag respectively.

They also signed four players to multi-year deals, adding Dunta Robinson and Sean Smith to shore up holes in the secondary, Mike DeVito to shore up a hole on the defensive line, and Anthony Fasano to likely be their starting tight end. They brought in a veteran Head Coach in Andy Reid and, rather than using an early draft pick on a quarterback for the future, they sent a 2nd round pick to San Francisco for veteran Alex Smith and used the #1 overall pick on a more NFL ready player in Eric Fisher, who will plug in at right tackle immediately.

I think, overall, their moves made a lot of sense this off-season. They might have overpaid a few players, but I like the strategy and I think they’ll be a much improved team this season. Not only are they more talented, but the additions of Alex Smith and Andy Reid will fix the three things that were holding them back last season, quarterback play, turnovers, and coaching and let the rest of their talent shine.

Reid wore out his welcome in Philadelphia, but he also managed to keep his job there for 14 seasons, which is saying something. Over his time there, he made basically every quarterback he had look better than they were, allowing the Eagles to ship off Kevin Kolb, AJ Feeley, and, eventually, a washed up Donovan McNabb for 2nd round picks, even though none of the three ever did anything of note for their new team. He also revitalized the careers of Jeff Garcia and Michael Vick, who both came to Philadelphia as backups on cheap one year deals.

Reid should continue his fine work with new quarterback Alex Smith, a great fit for Reid’s West Coast offense. Smith was not as good as he looked in San Francisco with Jim Harbaugh. Their supporting cast made life very easy for him, especially their defense, as Smith had an excellent win-loss record despite only leading a talented offensive bunch to 23 points per game in 1 ½ years under Harbaugh.

However, I don’t think you can say he’ll immediately regress to the borderline starter he was before Harbaugh. I believe he’s legitimately an improved quarterback over the one he was 2 seasons ago. Plus, with Reid and Kansas City’s supporting cast, he’s not going into such a bad situation in Kansas City. He’ll also see a much easier schedule than he did in San Francisco. He’s physically limited and can only lead teams deep into the playoffs in absolutely perfect situations, but at the very least he’ll stabilize the turnover margin.

Speaking of that turnover margin, it was a league worst -24 last season, which was actually one of the worst in NFL history (-30 by the 1965 Steelers is the worst in NFL history). It made it very tough for them to win games and affected both sides of the ball, especially defensively, where they were not nearly as bad as the 26.6 points per game they allowed would have suggested.

Turnover margin tends to be inconsistent on a year-to-year basis. For example, teams with 20 or fewer turnovers on average turn the ball over 25.5 times the following season, while teams that turn the ball over 35 or more times turn the ball over 28.1 times the following season. Teams with 20 or fewer takeaways take the ball away an average of 25.3 times the following season, while teams with 35 or more takeaways take the ball away an average of 27.3 times the following season. Teams with a turnover differential of +15 or higher have a turnover differential of +3.6 the following season, while teams with a turnover differential of -15 have a turnover differential of +1.5 the following season.

Turnovers and takeaways are incredibly hard to predict on year-to-year and even a game-to-game basis (teams with a turnover differential of +4 or higher and teams with a turnover differential of -4 or lower both average a turnover differential of +0.0 in the following game). Alex Smith should cut down on their interceptions. They should recover more than the 33.3% of fumbles that hit the ground that they did last season, 3rd worst in the NFL. And their talented defense should get their hands on a few more interceptions as well. With almost the same defensive unit in 2011, they had 19 interceptions. Last year, they had 7. That’s how inconsistent this stuff can be. That will go a long ways towards letting their talent show through and improving their record.

Unfortunately, this isn’t an uncommon opinion. Most people expect them to be much improved this season. This is a pretty big line for a road team as the Chiefs are favored by 4. That being said, the Jaguars are terrible. They need to get used to losing by more than four because it’s going to happen a lot the rest of the season. They might be better than the Raiders, but only by default. I actually like what they did this off-season, hiring Gus Bradley and Dave Caldwell as Head Coach and GM respectively, purging themselves of overpaid veterans, even at the expense of their current salary cap (their 27 million in dead money on the cap is only behind Oakland), and not reaching for a quarterback in a draft that didn’t have a good one, instead taking the best available in Luke Joeckel.

That being said, it won’t help them win this season. Only Oakland has less talent as they’ll be starting 3 rookies and they filled holes on defense with mediocre veterans like Sen’Derrick Marks, Roy Miller, Geno Hayes, and Alan Ball. Blaine Gabbert remains overmatched under center and will continue to prove why they never should have spent a top-10 pick on him in the first place.

They did have a ridiculous amount of injuries last season, but only Maurice Jones-Drew returning from injury has the possibility of really impacting their season. The rest of those guys are either no longer with the team or mediocre at best starters. They only have two of my top-200 players and they don’t really have many solid starters after them, especially with Marcedes Lewis and Justin Blackmon out in this one. I feel pretty confident taking the Chiefs to win by more than 4 here.

Also, one note, I’m changing how I do picks this year. I’ll be grouping my picks into high confidence, medium confidence, low confidence, and no confidence picks. I’ll also have one pick of the week.

Kansas City Chiefs 23 Jacksonville Jaguars 12

Pick against spread: Kansas City -4

Confidence: Medium

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]