Marrone: Blame me for Jags’ struggles
Jaguars coach Doug Marrone is shouldering the blame for the team’s four-game 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 — missing six games because of a strained right hamstring. But Coughlin, Caldwell and Bortles deserve criticism.
Coughlin designed an old-school team to play in a pass-happy league, one in which running the ball is barely important and hiding a mediocre quarterback is next to impossible. The ground-and-pound Jags want to control the clock, limit Bortles’ throws and play stout defense.
It can work, but it usually needs all to go right.
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 writing career after 29 years as Sports Illustrated’s lead pro football writer.
“When I started covering football in 1984, he was Peter Gammons and Bob Ryan and Tex Maule rolled into one,” King said. “His football knowledge was peerless. He knew the technical side and loved it, and he loved the personal side, too.”
Zimmerman briefly played college football at Stanford and Columbia, and covered the Jets for the New York Post for 13 years. He also worked for the Sacramento Bee, New York Journal-American and the New York World-Telegram & Sun before joining SI in 1979. His “A Thinking Man’s Guide to Pro Football” was published in 1970, and revised in 1984 as “The New Thinking Man’s Guide to Pro Football.”
WR Stefon Diggs didn’t practice for the second straight day after injuring his ribs during the the Vikings’ 30-20 Week 8 loss to the Saints. Diggs said he expects to play Sunday against the Lions. ... Cowboys DL David Irving suffered a high-ankle injury during practice and may miss Monday night’s game against the Titans.