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Even though it’s one game, the opener, on the road for the Jaguars is very important. Although we’ve learned that in the NFL things don’t really get rolling until November, a young team like Jacksonville needs to build their confidence, and back up a lot of the preseason hype about how they’re an ascending team. Head Coach Jack Del Rio knows the importance of this, but still plays the company line: play one game at a time. “It’s real simple. If we don’t have things go our way, we come back and go the following week. If we have things go our way, we come back and go the following week. We have to stay the course. We have to continue to play good football, to work to be a good football team. We can not be affected by things that happen along the way. We have to work, continue to do the things that will allow us to be successful. So we can’t get caught up in the hype or the hoopla and we can’t get caught up in the doom and gloom should things not go well. That’s the steady approach I’m looking for.”
Actually, the Jaguars don’t even have to win in Buffalo. They just have to be better than they were last year, especially in the Buffalo game here. Drew Bledsoe had a field day against the Jaguars, something cornerback Rashean Mathis hasn’t forgotten. “That was probably our worst performance,” Mathis said during his weekly appearance on Eyewitness News at Six on Thursday. “He picked us apart, but we’ve learned from that and we’re better than that now.”
The Jaguars are painfully aware that they went 0-8 last year on the road and are 0-9 dating back to the Tom Coughlin era while playing in an away game. Buffalo is never an easy place to play, and this might be the last go-round for Drew Bledsoe. But when your biggest story is who is going to be the starting running back, the rest of the team seems to be in place. Going on the road is a learned art in professional sports, and the Jaguars learned that they weren’t good enough at it last year to win games. So they’ve shifted some of the routine on the road, including instituting a “shirt and tie” attire for the team when they’re traveling.
“They need to be ‘knotted up’ when we’re traveling as a team,” Del Rio admitted on Thursday but wasn’t overwhelmed by the changes he’s made in the team’s travel plans. “We’ve done some little things. I don’t think too much can be made of it. I think we’re doing some little things, from a football standpoint, anywhere we can tighten things down, create a sense of urgency, demand the attention to details and those things. Anywhere that I’ve seen an opportunity, I have looked to do that. Certainly being successful on the road is part of that.”
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