Jaguars Journal
by Sam Kouvaris
April 24, 2010
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More Tebow
And when the Denver Broncos moved back into the first round it was one of the worst-case scenarios for the Jaguars from a public relations standpoint. It's hard to say if the Broncos were the only team who would have taken Tim in the first round. Denver clearly wanted him and moved around several times to acquire enough picks to get into the back of the first round to take Tebow.
Would New England have taken him later? Would Minnesota have taken him with the 30th pick overall? We'll never know, but it would have been much better for the Jaguars had Tebow not been taken on the first day. But when he was, the Jaguars should have jumped into PR mode.
Wayne, or Jack or even Gene should have come out and said something like; "We really liked Tim and tried to figure out how we could get him late in the first round. We liked whom we have in the first round, but we wanted to get Tim later. Denver had him rated higher than us and wanted to come up to get him. They came up and offered more than we could come up with and we couldn't get him. But we really like Tim and hope he has a very good career in Denver."
Anything like that softens the blow to the critics in Jacksonville. And while the critics are vociferous and making themselves heard, I don't think they're the majority of fans in town but they are beating the drum pretty hard. Fans are frustrated because the "body of work" for the Jaguars and their connection with the fans makes them feel like the team keeps them at arms length.
The fans want to feel involved somehow. They want to feel engaged. But the Jaguars remain an enigma when it comes to their connection. On one hand, the Team Teal effort and their partnership with local businesses is a great stride in the right direction. But this year's draft is the kind of scenario where they could take another step closer to the fans but haven't.
Tyson Alualu will be in town for the mini-camp next week but not before. That might have enough to do with the NFL rules about bringing players in as much as it does about Alualu being in Hawaii during the draft. More research about Alualu shows that a lot of people liked him in this draft and he might be a star in the making according to people who have followed Pac 10 and Cal football. He's the first Cal player ever taken by the Jaguars.
This is the first time the Jaguars have not had a second round pick. It's been a very productive round for them in the past picking players like Maurice Jones Drew and Rashean Mathis in round two.
With their third round pick the Jaguars selected D'Anthony Smith from Louisiana Tech another defensive tackle. No surprise when it comes to Gene Smith making the decisions. And it probably signals the end of John Henderson's career in Jacksonville. They'll try to keep trading him but if not, Henderson will probably be playing elsewhere next year.
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