Touchdown Jacksonville was a group largely responsible for convincing the NFL's owners that north Florida could support a football team. We saw how that turned out: every single home game thus far has been blacked out locally.

When the group was revived earlier this month, there were five remaining home dates. Much like a surgeon willing to leave the patient a limbless torso in order to keep the gangrene from killing him completely, they've made the final home game of the year the focus of their efforts (codenamed TEALgate Party) That's right: if the Jags can almost sell out a single game in 2009, it will be considered a success.

The December 17th game against the Colts has always looked like the most likely game to sell out. For one, the greatest QB of our generation is coming to town. Secondly. it'll be on national TV and no one wants to look bad in front of Rich Eisen. Finally, it's a Thursday night game, and since Jacksonville shuts down for the weekends, perhaps people will be able to attend.

But Touchdown Jacksonville is taking no chances:

Single-game ticket sales will include a coupon for $10, good for food, drinks or merchandise at the game if ticket buyers give the code word "teal" when ordering by phone or click on a Touchdown Jacksonville Web banner when ordering through Jaguars.com.

That's not all of the group's approach to boosting sales. Mike Hightower, chairman of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce, said members of the chamber's councils are working with their groups of businesspeople to sell tickets. Jacksonville lawyer Wayne Hogan said his law firm will have its Christmas party at the TEALgate party and that it will fill about 100 seats at the game.

Strong work, Wayne Hogan. Jacksonvillians will be watching their team get blown out on national TV in no time!

Which brings us to the only remaining question: which sounds better, Los Angeles Jaguars, or London Jaguars?

Touchdown Jacksonville Has Big Plans For Jaguars' Dec. 17 Game [Florida Times-Union]

Michael C. Wright of the The Florida Times-Union got to the bottom of the matter:

Everyone wants to know why Jaguars receiver Mike Sims-Walker was deactivated for Sunday's 41-0 blowout at Seattle.

Well, the answer is simpler than you think.

Sims-Walker missed bed check Friday night due to a visit with a female friend that went a little long, according to an NFL source, who described the situaton [sic] by saying, "undefeated and untied."

I have no idea what that means, but it sounds filthy. Was Larry Csonka involved somehow?

Why Mike Sims-Walker was inactive at Seattle [The Florida Times-Union]
Mike Sims-Walker Didn't Play Because He Was Getting Tail Instead [Second-String Fullback]
Does Guy Code Dictate Letting Mike Sims-Walker Off the Hook? [Midwest Sports Fans]

1. Shanoff is your mascot. Dan Shanoff is Deadspin's resident Jaguars fan. Now, Shanoff is my friend, and he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. But god dammit, is this man easy to make fun of. I mean, even putting aside all the Tebow worship (Fun fact: when alone together, Shanoff always demands that Tim "finish strong"), there's still an embarrassment of riches here:

-He predicted Catwoman would be a box office smash
-He believes Tebow will win a Super Bowl for the drafts him by running a 100% Wildcat offense
-Despite having lived in Brooklyn for years now, he believes the best bagels in the world are produced in Bethesda, MD
-ESPN made him into cartoon Shanoff once. /shiver
-He looks like an East Village bear

Remember, Shanoff is the most notable Jacksonville Jaguars fan on Earth.

2. Jacksonville is responsible for the death of rock music. This is the city that spawned both Creed and Limp Bizkit. Not only are those two bands awful, but AOR radio still maintains a heavy dose of Creed in their daily rotations, as if "Higher" is some sort of timeless masterpiece. I don't understand modern rock radio. Music like this wasn't designed to have a shelf life. It's almost as if they feel like they have nothing else to play. "Well, what the fuck do we play next? Hey, how about a Seven Mary Three song from 12 years ago?"

3. If there one thing worse than Jacksonville, it's everyone bitching about Jacksonville. For real. Read any Simmons column and you'll notice that if Jacksonville pops up, he'll invariably take a swipe at the town for the time they hosted the Super Bowl. That's the incredible thing about people in the media. If they bitch about something, they'll bitch about it forever. Now, let me show you something else Simmons said that REALLY pissed me off…

4. Jacksonville is where wide receivers now go to die, or snort rails. Someone clearly placed a curse on Jimmy Smith's crack pipe, because this team hasn't produced a useful wideout in eons. And now they've given Torry Holt a guaranteed salary of $4 million as some kind of retirement gift. Holt was gassed last year. Virtually every scout says his legs are gone. So expect another year of impotence from the Jacksonville passing game. MJD versus nine in the box? I can't wait!

5. Remember Jaguar fans, your head coach is the guy who left an axe lying in the center of the locker room. It's never a good idea to leave a massive, bladed object lying around a group of very strong and very dumb men. That's just common sense. So when you've got a team led by Jack Del Rio AND Mike Tice, that's not exactly a notable brain trust.

Wanna be part of the Deadspin NFL previews? It's simple. Just email me here and give me some reasons why the team you hate most sucks. If it's because you dated a fan of the team and she turned out to be some crazy bitch who keyed your car, all the better.

This is actually his second arrest in less than year. Last August, Smith pulled up to a DUI checkpoint with an open beer and marijuana in his car, which is usually a red flag of sorts indicating that you might have a problem. But sometimes you've just shout that cry for help a little louder.

Lt. Bill Leeper of the Florida Highway Patrol said Smith was pulled over for excessive window tint on his 2009 Mercedes coupe. A check on his driving record revealed his license was suspended, and the trooper who initiated the stop smelled burnt marijuana wafting from the car.

Crack cocaine, marijuana cigarettes and a business card with powder cocaine residue were located in the car's center console, Leeper said.

Smith told the media after the August arrest that he was "dealing with a very difficult, very personal issue" that may or may not include "not being a professional football player anymore." Smith is actually seventh on the all-time receptions list and 11th in yards, making his career even more impressive than I remember and this mug shot even more sad than it already is.

Bond set for former Jaguar Jimmy Smith on drug charges [Jacksonville Times Union]
Retired NFL Superstar Busted for Drugs [TMZ]

Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver, Matt Jones, just can't seem to get out of his own way. Since last year's bizarre i-was-just-sitting-in-this-truck-and-then-a-pile-of-finely-chopped-cocaine-jumped-in-my-lap-incident, Jones has been very diligent about keeping his proboscis clean — or, at least, being able to pass his random drug screening tests which were part of his probation. Then, last Thursday, Jones was out golfing with a buddy, decided he didn't want to feel like Nerdy NoBoozinstein, and ingested that dreaded probation killer: BEER.

Wouldn't you know it? Next day, it's Matt Jones random controlled substance test time and, since beer is also on the NOT FOR MATT JONES list, he faced two options: 6 weeks of drug counseling, or a few days in jail. Jones chose counseling, but, amazingly, the sensible drug court judge suggested he think about what six weeks away would do to his football career.

The clink it is! And that's where Matt Jones will be until Sunday morning.

Matt Jones Should Not Have Visited The 19th Hole [Friends Of The Program]

Yes, with his 364-yard, three-touchdown, come-from-behind effort, the Peyton Manning Fathead is suddenly cool once more. Although that wall looks a little busy; who is this kid, Lil' Ronnie? But still, it's an improvement over his previous decoration.

So are the Colts the hottest team in football? Will every child now requite a Manning Fathead, or at least Dallas Clark? NBCSports' Mike Celizic, for one, is not impressed.

The Colts’ eighth straight win put them in the playoffs for the seventh straight year and gave them their sixth straight 11-win season. Those are impressive numbers, but they’ve been compiled mostly against second-tier teams. And most of the wins have been agonizingly close.

The Colts started the season 3-4 and didn’t start rolling until an 18-15 win over the New England Patriots on Nov. 2. The following week, they beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 24-20. Since then, they’ve beaten a string of losers and few of them have been easy: the Houston Texans by six, the San Diego Chargers by three, the Cleveland Browns by four, the Cincinnati Bengals by 32, the Detroit Lions by 10 and now the Jags by seven. That’s eight wins, with just two of them by more than a touchdown.

But isn't eight straight wins, well, eight straight wins? With their knack for winning games late, I don't see the Colts really being outclassed by anyone in the AFC right now. As long as Manning stays healthy — oh no, look out! — they have as good a shot at making the Super Bowl as anyone. Right? No? OK, sorry.

Wonder what's on that kid's computer screen? Let's take a look and ... oh. So that's how the middle school janitor got those cheerleader photos.

Super Bowl Ready? Colts Have A Long Way To Go [NBCSports]
Manning Keeps Streaks Alive [IndyStar.com]

It all started last November, when Childress fined Williamson for missing a game—even though he skipped it to be at his grandmother's funeral in South Carolina. Things went sour after that and Williamson was eventually traded to the Jags. He's been waiting for this game for months, as a chance to show his old lover how much better off he is without her, but since Troy has just four catches this year and will be inactive on Sunday with a groin injury, he figured he might as well just show up anyway and punch Childress in the face.

"I'm going to bring this up one more time," said the Jaguars receiver, who the Vikings drafted seventh overall in 2005. "And if you all could bring this up to Coach Childress, we could meet on the 50-yard line and we can go at it" ...

"I mean if I could duke it out with Coach Childress that'd be a different story," Williamson said. "But other than that, this is just another game to play on Sunday."

When Childress was asked about the comment at his press conference, he initially made some bluster about the teams having a "buffer zone" and not wanting to get fined, which is the NFL equivalent of saying "I can't fight you after school, because I have detention." But when asked about the tale of the tape, Childress did not demure.

"Do you need my reach? I'm not like a woman; I'll give you my weight. It's 190 pounds of twisted steel and rompin', stompin' dynamite. Is that enough humor for you?"

Yes, but we'll take some more. What do you think of your chances Troy?

"I love 'em," Williamson said. "I even could tie my hands behind my back and — all right, we're going to just leave it at that."

Awesome. Jacksonville coach Jack Del Rio, anything to add?

"He probably wouldn't have to run very fast to catch him."

Perfect. (I hope you're referring to your receiver as the speedier of the two.) And for the final word, we go to insane defensive end Jared Allen:

"Coach Childress is a tough-minded guy," Allen said. "And he’s got a badass mustache," Allen said. "I put my money on whoever has a kickass mustache."

Well, that settles it then. Should we go with Brazilian jujitsu rules or just a standard WWE broken table match?

Jaguars' Troy Williamson wants to duke it out at midfield with former coach Brad Childress [Orlando Sentinel]
River City Rumble? Williamson wants Childress [AP/Google]
Jaguars' Williamson offers to 'duke it out' with Childress [Rochester Post-Bulletin]
Troy Williamson wants to fight Brad Childress at the 50-yard line [Orlando Sentinel]

This is the first update on the 26-year-old defensive lineman's condition since the bizarre shooting and more news will be available tomorrow after Coach Jack Del Rio addresses the team.

Investigators are still clueless about Collier's shooter and have offered a $26,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

Doctor: Jaguar Collier Leg Amputated, Paralyzed After Shooting [Jacksonville.com]

He pushed away defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth, who was trying to console him, and took a seat on the bench. When it was time for the Titans to take the field following a three-and-out by the Jaguars, Young appeared as if he didn't want to go back in.

Collins began taking snaps before Fisher came over and appeared to gesture for Young to take the field. The coach later said a tight hamstring — not a reluctant quarterback — was the issue. Asked about it five times during his postgame news conference, Fisher never changed his story.

Yeah, it's so bad Albert Haynesworth is trying to console him.

I was at the game and Young's refusal to take the field was very apparent to everyone. So was the crowd's cheering reaction. As Kerry Collins—he of the gray beard and formerly quitting on his first NFL team—took snaps from Titans center Kevin Mawae, the crowd went crazy with cheers. Believing, mistakenly, that Jeff Fisher had pulled Young from the game. Just as the cheering reached a crescendo, Young came running back onto the field. Two plays later he was injured and left the field. The severity of the injury is not yet known. (Adam Schefter of the NFL network is reporting that Young tore his MCL and will be out 2-4 weeks.) After being helped off the field, Young left behind a 3rd and 15 for his back-up. Collins entered and immediately converted the 3rd and 15 and then led the Titans on a scoring drive that sealed the win. Leading many Titans fans to question, including this one, whether the team might not have a better chance of actually scoring points with Collins at the helm.

After the game, a Titans 17-10 victory, many players questioned Young's attempt to quit on the team. What didn't quit was the Titans defense, something linebacker Keith Bulluck pointedly drove home. "No one is going to quit on this side of the ball.''

The latest incident raises an awful lot of unsettling questions. For the past two seasons Young hasn't appeared to have the mental fortitude to be an NFL quarterback. Some players perform well amid criticism and questioning of their abilities, Young only seems to thrive when he's being patted on the back. Combining the rumors that Young got Norm Chow fired, the strange comments about considering retirement, and now refusing, at least for a short while, to go back into a football game because the crowd wasn't behind you, and you have the makings of a real mess. Maybe VY needs to spend more time swilling Patron shirtless, because whatever he's doing now just isn't working.

Young grabs knee, spotlight [Tennessean]

Today: The Jacksonville Jaguars. Your author is Dan Shanoff.

Dan Shanoff blogs at DanShanoff.com and The Sporting Blog and infuriates "real" Jags' fans every year when he writes this preview.

Year Three of my experiment as a bandwagon Jaguars fan begins, and with apologies to the team's real longtime fans, I get the feeling that last season will be about as good as it gets:

11-5 regular-season record. David Garrard, with an NFL-best 18-3 TD-INT ratio and a Top 3 QB rating. The team's biggest playoff win ever, on the road in Pittsburgh. They even kept up with the Patriots in Foxboro... for a while.

Not only did the Jaguars make the playoffs, but I still feel like they presented the biggest challenge to the Patriots — knocking them off should have been our glory, not the Giants'.

But that's not what history will remember: They'll remember Brady going 26-of-28, an NFL record 93 percent completion rate (including another record, connecting on his first 16 pass attempts).

Three weeks later, Brady was swallowed whole by the Giants' pass rush.

You can tell what impression those two results left on the Jags, because three months later, they went out and traded up for Florida defensive end Derrick Harvey and used their 2nd-round pick to nab another SEC defensive end, Quentin Groves. Call it the "(Justin) Tuck Rule."

Subsequently, this off-season sort of sucked: Free-agent import WR Jerry Porter got hurt. First-round draftee Derrick Harvey was That Rookie Who Inexplicbly Holds Out Forever. Matt Jones made his play to be a first-round pick in your Fantasy Cokehead League. Even Fred Taylor got arrested, for god's sake. Then, obviously, we hit bottom — the shocking shooting of Richard Collier; with all thoughts and prayers for the man, who knows what the full on-field impact of that will be?

Here's what remains: This continues to be a team that most fans in the league couldn't care less about — and that most fans in the region care less about than, say, the Georgia-Florida game.

This, despite near-universal respect for our Pro Bowl QB; a fantasy stud RB in Maurice Jones-Drew; a (theoretical) upgrade at WR to go with Reggie "10 TDs? Really?" Williams; and, most important, that upgrade to the D-Line that could close the gap with the Pats.

The Pats aren't nearly as strong as they were a year ago and the Jaguars, theoretically, have improved their defense. The good news is the expectations: Anything less than a playoff spot — even in the AFC — should be considered a failure. Sure beats being a Falcons fan.

But last season also left little margin for improvement: Beat the Pats? Win the Super Bowl?

Hey, it could be worse: "Save the franchise from moving to Los Angeles" might make beating the Pats or winning the Super Bowl look doable.

According to the Florida Times-Union, Jones was mid-chop when the fuzz arrived:

The police report said that three Fayetteville officers were walking toward an unlit parking lot when they spotted a white Toyota 4Runner parked with several people inside. The area is known for thefts and drug use, the report said.

One of the officers walked up to the passenger side rear door and saw Jones sitting inside. The report said he had in his lap a white card with a white powder and a credit card in his hand that he was using to chop up and scrape the powder.

The officer opened the door, identified himself and ordered Jones to put his hand in plain view. Jones did not initially comply and the officer pulled out his gun, keeping it at the “low ready,” the report said. Jones was then ordered out of the vehicle and complied.

I guess this means that break-out fantasy year from him will have to wait another season.

Jaguars receiver Matt Jones arrested on cocaine possession, police say [Florida Times-Union]
Jags' Wide Receiver Jones Arrested For Possession Of A Controlled Substance [The Big Lead]
Matt Jones Gets Busted [PFT]

!

Tweeners ... oops, hybrids, are undersized defensive ends who can play a little linebacker, or really big linebackers who can play defensive end. They're not that rare, and through most of football history they weren't that useful. Then, defensive coordinators started concocting wacky 3-2-6 zone-blitz schemes where safeties rushed the quarterback, linemen dropped into zones, and 320-pound nose tackles slurped Gatorade on the sidelines and contemplated the extinction of their species.

Suddenly, the Harveys of the world are in high demand. Harvey was a straight defensive end at Florida, but he wants the world to know he has a fuel cell under his hood. "I dropped [into coverage] every game," he said recently. "We had five zones at Florida, so everyone had to drop a lot."

All that talk of coverage is nice, but every hybrid is an eight-cylinder hemi at heart, and Harvey is at his best when crunching quarterbacks. His pass rushing technique could use a little work (he's entering the draft as a junior), but he has the change-of-direction quickness to run around offensive tackles, and he has enough power to hold his own at the point of attack. The Jaguars don't really need a hybrid, anyway. They want someone who can play end in a base 4-3 and provide some depth: Paul Spicer led the Jags with 7.5 sacks, but no other defender had more than 4.

According to the Florida Times-Union, Williams offered up sex with his female passenger to the arresting officer "if you let me go."

This was the capper in the mind-blowing documentation released by officer E.E. Bridges, who also alleges Williams called him a honky, accused him of racism and also threatened "sex acts with the officer's wife and daughter."

Yikes.

What ever happened to the days of sucking on pennies and black licorice?

Sex With An NFL Player's Girlfriend? Here's How! [Sports By Brooks]
Jaguar Back Gave Officer An Earful [Florida Times-Union]

We don't know if Belichick's playbook is rife with misspellings, but we do know that his team will be ... hey, wait just a second. Maybe that's the secret to a perfect season. Misspell everything in the playbook. Oh that genius.

—————————————————————————————-

Fourth Quarter

0:00 — 17-0*

* - One of those wins was not in the regular season.

0:22 — Jacksonville gets the ball back on a punt, basically being teased at this point.

2:00 — So Joe Montana gets his own diner in a commercial, even though he's a Hall of Fame quarterback and doesn't need the income. Yet Eric Crouch is probably delivers pizzas for a living somewhere and... nothing.

2:18 — Dante Stallworth's first down just about wraps this game up. All the love and adoration may now be unloaded on Brady, Welker, and the defense. And deservingly so. Jacksonville played a mostly awesome game.

4:08 — Complete! To the wrong guy! Garrard has an offseason to digest mull that interception to Rodney Harrison. Maybe for a split second, Garrard thought his team wore blue. Maybe this is a peek into a super-double-dog-secret uniform change for Jacksonville in 2008. Maybe.

4:17 — Oh, let's do another fourth down play. Why not?

4:34 — Gutsy Impressive play by Garrard completing to Dennis Northcutt for the first down. Asante Samuel gets a 15-yard "play nice" foul for apparently punching the football out of Northcutt's hands out of bounds, taking out a lifetime of broken childhood dreams. Save the aggression for the flight attendant.

4:42 — Jacksonville is forced to try a 4th down play inside their own 40. Outlook isn't so good for underdog well-wishers.

6:39 — Gostkowski's field goal puts the lead back at a touchdown*.

* - Would have to cheat and score the rare four-point conversion.

6:43 — Wes Welker drops a 3rd and 1 pass. I don't think the blonde chick in that KFC commercial saw that coming. Then again, she didn't see the roofie in her drink slipped in by her male friend either.

8:22 — Oh, there's that big pass play I've hard so much about. Brady threw it to Dante Stallworth who didn't even have to break stride. That went for 53 yards. Randy Moss, by the way, has just one catch for 14 yards.

9:47 — Scobee's field goal, after Matt Jones couldn't grab a third down catch, puts the game within a "touchdown"

12:18 — Another impressive catch, this one coming from Reggie Williams, just barely getting his hands underneath the ball and just barely eliciting a dick joke. He just kind of laid on the ground for a second or two before being playfully tapped by someone in the Patriots secondary.

14:31 — Ernest Wilford hauls in a very tough third down catch, then takes a late hit and improves field position by 15 more yards.

Third Quarter

0:00 — Jacksonville closes out the quarter with the ball, but at the 7-yard line. That's disheartening, because it's not like they can go that far to score a touch ... do ... wn ...

0:51 — Tom Brady just sort of stands around, like a panhandler, then makes a conscious decision to try a "forward pass." Benjamin Watson, standing around in the endzone like a different kind of panhandler, is grateful. Here comes that lead we've been hearing so much about.

3:29 — Well, after a questionable roughing-the-dreamboat penalty, Maroney turns a draw play into, oh, let's say 29 yards. That's what GameCenter says. (Note to self: Don't just go over to GameCenter entirely. It's full of boring statistics, with none of the love.)

4:14 — After David Garrard was thrown around between Rodney Harrison and Mike Vrabel just long enough, Josh Scobee salvages the drive with a 39-yard field goal. Meh. Points are points.

8:49 — It doesn't appear that Jacksonville, in their halftime adjustments, installed a cover-white-guy defense. Wes Welker had four receptions on that drive, including the touchdown.

11:20 — Until Maroney runs for another 20-or-so yards.

12:49 — Doing what they did their last drive — okay, not the one-play drive where they knelt, because that would be silly — the Patriots are just putting together good-but-not-too-good plays in succession.

I'm remaining staunch to a two-touchdown victory for New England. But I think I speak for all underdog lovers by admitting Jacksonville pulling out this win has a much better chance of happening.