My friend is a football fan, but not necessarily a Jaguars fan. You could call him an interested observer. He pointed to Josh Scobee as an example. “He wasn’t much in the preseason, and we were all wondering why Jeff Chandler wasn’t getting a chance. Now we know. They knew he could kick.”

And my friend is right.

Del Rio and Harris have been putting together a team that’s talented and more than that, a real team. They might be short in a couple of spots, but there’s a blend of personalities going on in the locker room and on the field that has the feel of a winner. “The guys they brought in during the off season just jelled,” Cornerback Rashean Mathis said on Thursday. “Everybody’s got the right attitude and it shows in practice and on the field.”

It’s not by accident that the players seem to fit together. It was part of Del Rio’s plan all along, even before he became a head coach. “That’s something that I’ve always thought was an important part of the game,” Del Rio told me at Thursday’s press conference. “It was something that needed to be worked on when we got here and it’s gotten better.” “We’re looking at guys who can play and will understand what we’re trying to do,” Jack added. “Absolutely it’s a consideration when we look at a guy. I’m looking for players who can adopt a team first attitude.”

A lot of coaches say that, but it turns out to be lip service. Del Rio believes it’s one of the real keys to winning in the league. Getting guys to believe in the same thing and in each other. Finding good players is still the priority, but finding good players who want to play the game and win as a team is a whole other story.

When you walk in the Jaguars locker room, there’s a circle of couches and chairs in the middle of the floor. You can usually assess the team’s mood by how full they are and who’s sitting there. The players have their own lounge just off the locker room, and when things aren’t going so well, that’s where they hang out. But this season the “couch-o-meter” has been sitting on a ten for most of the year. The couch isn’t a clique either. Black players, white players, offensive, defensive, backs and linemen are folded over the couches talking about topics as varied as free agency to last night’s action. There are usually a bunch of laughs coming from there as well.

Start not only looking, but listening to the Jaguars and you’ll conclude that they’re for real.