Gabbert named Jags regular season starter over Henne
Chad didn't help himself with a poor performance in the second preseason game, but its a bit surprising that the Jags made the decision so early considering Gabbert is out the remainder of the preseason with a thumb injury. Hopes of a Henne/Denard backfield dashed, but knowing the Jags, probably only temporarily.
August 19th, 2013 at 1:52 PM ^
and is too bad. How does a guy who is injured get named the starter - seems goofy to me...what if he can't make it back? Then you've knocked the confidence of your now replacement by choosing a walking M.A.S.H. unit over him to start.
Seems dumb...other than drafting DRob - not a whole lot to like down in JAX.
August 19th, 2013 at 1:56 PM ^
I actually watched that preseason game against the Jets to see Denard. I can honestly say that Gabbert looked semi-competent and Henne (unfortunately) looked absolutely terrible. I was really hoping to see Henne win the starting job, but there was no question who outperformed who against the Jets.
August 19th, 2013 at 1:57 PM ^
Henne has not exactly ever looked like a viable option as a starter in the NFL. Yeah, we've got great memories of him in Ann Arbor, but I'm not surprised by this. I'm sure Henne will see the field, probably more than all other backups, but I don't think he's the starter Jax is looking for.
On that note, between Jones-Drew and Robinson, they could still be a really fun team to watch this year.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:38 PM ^
Henne has put together some games and shown a lot of flashes. But he has been terribly inconsistent. He'll start to look good and then go out and be absolutely awful. That doesn't make for a top notch QB in the NFL. He has the tools, just needs to be consistent (he was somewhat similar while at Michigan, but got away with it more because defenses weren't as good). Still think he's good enough to stick around as a back up to have a decent career out of it all though.
August 19th, 2013 at 3:00 PM ^
I don't think you're really disagreeing with me. We are pretty much saying Henne is good enough to play QB in the NFL, but no team wants him as their starter unless he fixes his consistency. Injuries will give him PT, or even a cold streak from a mediocre starter (Gabbert), but I really don't see him ever becoming more than a decent backup.
August 19th, 2013 at 3:36 PM ^
Is because at times he has looked like a viable starter. It just hasn't been consistent enough to actually be a viable starter. I agree with most of your post, just had that one slight disagreement with wording.
August 19th, 2013 at 6:04 PM ^
Considering he's about to enter his 7th season in the nfl, he's done a decent job of sticking around. I'm sure we all hoped he'd be a solid starter in the nfl, but carving out close to a 10 yr career mostly as a backup isn't that bad of a job.
August 19th, 2013 at 1:54 PM ^
The Jaguars are such a hot mess you'd think Rich Rod was coaching. So many penalties on both sides of the ball and poor special teams play.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:00 PM ^
We're beyond dead horse and now into ground horse meat. It's like we can't go a single goddamn day without some totally unwarranted "hurr durr dick rod" reference.
JUST DIE ALREADY
August 19th, 2013 at 4:16 PM ^
I hope you eat a dick sandwich with extra pubes and no mayonaisse on an stale 3 day old bagguette so you have to chew it real hard and it hurts the inside of your mouth.
I hope you like the flavor of that dick sandwich so much that you decide to open up a bunch of chain stores that sell dick sandwiches and you end up going out of business because nobody likes dick sandwiches, and you blow your life savings. I also hope that your wife/girlfriend decides to leave you and take the kids, so you have to move back in with your parents who make up really strict rules that you have to live by.
August 19th, 2013 at 4:29 PM ^
Ah, the dick sandwich with extra pubes, good old #7 at the Banhammer Deli.
August 19th, 2013 at 4:37 PM ^
Would you prefer the Rat Burger @ Demolition Man Cafe?
August 19th, 2013 at 7:40 PM ^
August 20th, 2013 at 1:05 AM ^
Well, it's pretty simple, mayo just doesn't go on dick sandwiches, because then the dick will slide right off and all you're left with is a mayo and pubes sandwich. Brown mustard might be ok, but i wanted to keep the sandwich in the insult pretty simple.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:26 PM ^
/s
But seriously, guys like Ellerbe and (to an extent) Amaker left their teams in at least as bad a shape as RR ever did, and nobody seems to bitch about them. I get recency bias and all that, but it drives me crazy that people just keep dragging up a guy who hasn't coached at this school for years and, honestly, has been reasonably successful everywhere else.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:35 PM ^
(or even thinking about) RR, but there is no legitimate comparison for expectations between our footbaw coaches and our hoops coaches (leaving out the whole Martin stain that was going to need time to fade no matter who took the helm).
August 19th, 2013 at 3:25 PM ^
August 19th, 2013 at 4:16 PM ^
Well, considering Ellerbe took over a program that had been a consistent NCAA-caliber team for almost a decade, including one championship and runs to the elite 8 and two title games, I wouldn't say expectations were that much lower. Honestly, outside of 2006 UM football had been a fine-but-unspectacular outfit for a couple of years under Carr...
You know what, I don't care anymore. The horse's mom is complaining about what I'm doing to her son. For her sake I'm done with RR.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:39 PM ^
I think the recency plays a role, but I would presume the bigger factor for the RR disdain when compared to Ellerbe and Amaker is that they didn't walk into a situation where expectations were high. Ellerbe coached a team facing all sorts of sanctions, and his performance, while awful, was just a footnote in the Webber/Traylor/Bullock mess. Amaker took over a decimated program that nobody but the most diehard fans were paying attention to.
August 19th, 2013 at 3:44 PM ^
Rodriguez, while he was justly fired, left the current staff with ok to good personnel. Yes, there were recruiting gaps and the lack of O-line recruiting was horrendous, but the players who played a lot were decent. Even while Rod underachieved the team went from 3 to 5 to 7 wins. Hoke and co. basically fixed the tire fire defense and didn't dip too much offensiveley and, voila, a season that should have been the standard had Rich just fielded an average defense his last two years. This is a key year, because as we transition into the Hoke era fully there needs to be an on field improvement. 8 wins last year fell below just about everyone's expectations.
August 19th, 2013 at 4:09 PM ^
Hold on there bucko, nobody thought the defense had any good personnel when RR left, and everyone thought Hoke would need a few years to win since the offense didn't fit his Pro Style system. Hoke made it work.
August 19th, 2013 at 5:31 PM ^
Just not true. Nobody thought the defense would improve as much as it did, but almost everyone thought the defense would be at least average by default. And the author of this blog predicted that Hoke would win 9-10 games and go to a BCS bowl (I believe he predicted a loss) a la Charlie Weis doing so with players that weren't his. I like Hoke but he's got a long way to go, and even he would admit that.
August 19th, 2013 at 1:54 PM ^
August 19th, 2013 at 1:58 PM ^
August 19th, 2013 at 1:59 PM ^
After watching the Jags-Jets preseason game last weekend, I'd have to guess that the Jags are the most dysfunctional team in the NFL. Even next to the Jets, of all teams, everything about them looked pretty awful.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:16 PM ^
August 19th, 2013 at 2:26 PM ^
They have some speed at skill positions, but their blocking is bad and their play calling is terrible. They can have all the Ace Sanders and Denard Robinsons in the world, but relying on Gabbert to run a play-action, naked bootleg every play isn't going to win them a whole lot of anything.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:30 PM ^
Yes, preseason and all those asterisks, but the two teams just played to a 37-13 result with the Jets winning. What to make of that, I don't know, but it certainly doesn't help the argument that Jags>Jets
August 19th, 2013 at 3:26 PM ^
And the Jags looked pretty good for the first couple series. They scored on both of their opening drives (TD +FG) against the Jets' starting defense, looking fast, clean and efficient. (I heard one Jets fan moaning, "Their hurry-up is killing us!") Huge difference later, and their 100 yds of penalties didn't help. Unfortunately, Henne (who played pretty well last week, if I remember correctly) really played poorly. Don't know enough about their roster to know if he was behind a back-up O-line or enough about their depth to know if that made all the difference. But this was a typical preseason game in that the two halves were like two different games.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:02 PM ^
August 19th, 2013 at 2:04 PM ^
Gabbert has a higher ceiling and better prospects as a long term starter, sorry
August 19th, 2013 at 2:17 PM ^
Um no. Gabbert sucks. But Chad sucked more and unfortunately has sucked for a longer period of time.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:32 PM ^
Yeah, I'm gonna stop you there.
Pro football metrics indicate that when Gabbert had 3 to 5 plus seconds to set and throw in the pocket (i.e. 5% of the time) he was actually one of the most accurate QBs in the league. There's reason for optimism with Gabbert. The staff feels last year was inappropriate to throw him under the bus for, as the O was a tire fire.
August 19th, 2013 at 3:06 PM ^
August 19th, 2013 at 2:30 PM ^
I think it has far more to do with Gabbert being a high 1st rounder than an actual ability. People talk about Gabbert as if he was some unstoppable guy in college and a sure-fire good pro, but at best he was a competent starter in a pass-happy offense at Mizzou and has done nothing so far except be a moderately better option than Chad and whoever else they've brought in.
Henne looks to be a career backup which is a pretty sweet gig if you can get it, but if I'm a Jax fan I'm not rejoicing that Gabbert beat him out for the starting spot. And given how injury-prone and ineffective Gabbert has been for most of his career, I'm expecting to see Henne out there soon enough.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:20 PM ^
But does there exist a douchier name combo in the NFL than Chad and Blaine?
August 19th, 2013 at 2:27 PM ^
Yes, the Broncos. The three deep of Payton, Brock, and Zac is more douchetastic.
I'd place the Jags second.
The Cardinals are probably third in the race - Carson and Drew are collar poppers.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:34 PM ^
I didn't realize Zac Dysert was with Denver, and yes, that spelling is indeed douchey.
This topic sounds like one for a post on an NFL humor blog like KSK or something.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:34 PM ^
I'd argue that Cleveland's starting backfield of Brandon and Trent are up there.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:50 PM ^
August 19th, 2013 at 3:55 PM ^
Ok, Brandon
August 19th, 2013 at 4:13 PM ^
I wouldn't quite say that...
August 19th, 2013 at 2:28 PM ^
At this point, it wouldn't have made sense for Jacksonville to start Henne over Gabbert. Jacksonville's not going anywhere this season and they want to see whether they can salvage Gabbert or if they need to draft another QB next season. Henne's gotten a number of chances to start and hasn't done much with them. At this point, his best bet seems to be developing into a quality backup like Shaun Hill.
August 19th, 2013 at 2:33 PM ^
August 19th, 2013 at 2:34 PM ^
you killed Henne
/probablyanoldjoke
August 19th, 2013 at 2:41 PM ^
August 20th, 2013 at 1:50 PM ^
It brings a smile to my face when I remember Henne outplaying Sanchez during that Monday night game in 2009, after the MNF crew spent the entire broadcast gushing about Sanchez. That was one shining moment in Henne's NFL career.