Marrone: Blame me for Jags’ struggles
Jaguars coach Doug Marrone is shouldering the blame for the team’s fourgame losing streak, saying he “hasn’t done a good enough job for whatever reason to get everyone’s mind in the right place.”
Marrone insists he’s not trying to be a “martyr, a shield or anything like that.”
Truth is he’s protecting everyone: top executive Tom Coughlin, general manager Dave Caldwell, inconsistent quarterback Blake Bortles, unavailable running back Leonard Fournette and dozens more underperforming players on an underachieving team.
The Jaguars (3-5) have been one of the biggest busts in 2018, especially last month when they went 0-for-October and looked nothing like the team that advanced to the AFC title game nine months earlier.
“There is a story out there about this team. It is an ugly story,” said Marrone, who expects his team to regroup during its off week.
“But the story hasn’t ended. We can still control how this story reads.”
Injuries are a big reason for the slide, especially with Fournette — the team’s offensive centerpiece — missfor ing six games because of a strained right hamstring.
Nick Mullens threw for 262 yards and three touchdowns for the most productive NFL debut since the merger, leading the San Francisco 49ers to a 34-3 victory over the Oakland Raiders in a lopsided Battle of the Bay on Thursday night.
George Kittle made an impressive one-handed catch on a 71-yard play that set up his touchdown from Mullens and Pierre Garcon caught his first TD pass in two seasons with the 49ers (2-7), who snapped a sixgame losing streak and won just the second time in two years without Jimmy Garpppolo at quarterback.
Paul Zimmerman, the longtime Sports Illustrated NFL writer known as “Dr. Z” for his analytical approach, died Thursday. He was 86. NBC Sports football writer Peter King confirmed Zimmerman’s death. King worked with Zimmerman at Sports Illustrated, and completed Zimmerman’s autobiography, “Dr. Z: The Lost Memoirs of an Irreverent Football Writer.” Zimmerman had three strokes in 2008 that ended his career after 29 years as SI’s pro football writer.