Four months ago, if I’d told you Todd Bowles was safe in New York and Jack Del Rio was out in Oakland, you’d have thought I was nuts. Same thing if, four weeks ago, I’d told you Dirk Koetter was safe in Tampa Bay and Jim Caldwell was out in Detroit. We try to forecast these things, and in doing so, we apply the input we get from people inside the game who are plugged into these situations. But the truth is even those people often don’t know what the owners are going to do when it’s all said and done. Sometimes, owners change their minds, and the thing everybody was sure would happen … doesn’t.
Heck, look at Cleveland, where one of the most famously impatient owners in the league said he’s sticking with a coach who didn’t win a game all year and won only one the year before. Job security for 1-31 Hue Jackson is the ultimate symbol of the mercurial nature of coaching decisions made at an ownership level. Jimmy Haslam has jettisoned coaches with significantly better records than Jackson’s.
Sometimes, you can see these things coming. We all expected the Bears and Colts to make changes, and they are. But more often than not, we don’t know exactly what a team owner is thinking until he or she makes a move. And sometimes, even if we do know what the billionaires in Nike NFL Jerseys Supply charge of the decisions are thinking, they change their minds at the last second.
While Roethlisberger probably will play far better than that, the biggest challenge for Jacksonville could be stopping Le’Veon Bell in the running game. The Jaguars ranked first stopping the pass, but 21st against the run.
“I feel great, especially not playing these last two weeks, not going to (training) camp earlier in the year,” Bell says. “I can’t complain. I like where I am. This is the freshest I’ve ever been going into the playoffs so we’ll see how it goes.”
Jacksonville needs far better passing from Blake Bortles. He gained more Wholesale NFL Jerseys yards running than throwing vs. Buffalo in the wild-card round.
