The meeting was called, first, to give everyone an opportunity to do some much-needed venting. After that, the goal was to heal and move forward.
This players-only session happened a little more than a week before the Jacksonville Jaguars were to begin the 2007 regular season. It happened right after the Jags dropped a bombshell by abruptly releasing Byron Leftwich and naming David Garrard as their new starting quarterback.
"It was just a total shock," Garrard recalled. "It kind of blindsided everybody. I don't think anybody saw it coming, Byron and myself included."
So a few veteran members of the Jaguars gathered the entire squad to talk about what had occurred. The mood was both somber and angry. Several players voiced their displeasure with the way Leftwich had been treated, sent packing so close to the start of the season when there were minimal opportunities to land with another team. But then, gradually, they all came to grips that what was done was done and that it was time to rally behind their new leader, Garrard.
"Everybody in here needs to have his back 100 percent because he's the one who's going to take us to the promised land," one player said.
Finally, 6-foot-7, 335-pound defensive tackle John Henderson rose like a skyscraper from his seat. After acknowledging that no one clapped during an earlier meeting when coach Jack Del Rio informed the team of the quarterback switch, Henderson announced, "I feel it's time for us to clap." And the entire team did.
Seven weeks later, the rest of the Jaguars are still in a clapping mood about the controversial decision. Garrard has led Jacksonville to a 4-1 start, with a chance to move into first place in the AFC South with a Week 7 victory over the 5-0 Indianapolis Colts at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium on Monday Night Football.
His passer rating of 104.7 puts him fourth in the NFL behind New England's Tom Brady, Carolina's Jake Delhomme (who will miss the rest of the season with an elbow injury), and the Colts' Peyton Manning. Garrard's completion percentage of 66.2 is the best of his six-year career. And he has done some of his best work in crucial situations, leading the league with a 139.9 passer rating on third down. In fact, of Garrard's six touchdown passes, five have come on third down (second only to Brady's eight).
The success isn't entirely unexpected. Garrard, who joined the Jaguars in 2002 as a fourth-round draft pick from East Carolina, did manage to build some credibility as Leftwich's backup. After Leftwich was hurt late in 2005, he stepped in and helped lead the Jaguars to the playoffs. After Leftwich was again hurt in 2006, Garrard started the final 10 games of the season.
Garrard could very well have secured the starting job then, but struggled with turnovers during a three-game losing streak at the end of the year that cost the Jags a postseason berth that once seemed like a lock. That opened the door for Del Rio to announce in February that Leftwich would be the Jaguars' starter for 2007.
Garrard wasn't happy, but he refused to feel defeated.
"I had to suck it up and basically just take it," he said. "I didn't want to become disgruntled. I didn't want to ask to be traded."
Deep down, he still believed the Jaguars gave him his best chance to ultimately win a No. 1 spot permanently because of Leftwich's history of being unable to finish a season due to injury. Without "wishing harm on anybody," Garrard was convinced that that opportunity would arrive sooner or later. And even though Leftwich already had been named the starter, Garrard approached off-season workouts and training camp as if they were competing for the same job.
The coaches noticed. Garrard performed so well during preseason games, Del Rio and the rest of the coaches were persuaded to rethink the quarterback depth chart. Once they concluded that Garrard was their best man at the position, Del Rio saw no point in hanging onto Leftwich, with whom he had had a strained relationship.
"Dave understands that this is his team and he's just playing with a lot of confidence," new Jaguars offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter said. "He's built on that every week. As you get more success, you get more confidence. And as David has gotten more and more comfortable in that (starting) role, I've seen him continue to take on more and more of a leadership role and become more vocal -- the way he talks to the players, the way he talks in the huddle."
Garrard's most remarkable achievement so far is being only one of two regular NFL starting quarterbacks who have not thrown an interception this season. Tampa Bay's Jeff Garcia is the other.
"There's no recipe for it," Garrard said. "It's just going through your reads and trying to put the ball into the hands of your receivers. They're doing a good job of getting good separation. They're really making it easy for me to be able to get the ball into their hands.
"And I think it's just being smart with the ball. Not being careful or anything, because I'm still throwing the ball into tight places, throwing it like I should, taking chances with deep balls and things like that. Also, really knowing the defense, really knowing where I'm supposed to be going with the ball has really helped me to get the ball out of my hands faster and quicker and has allowed me to be more accurate.
"Every quarterback tries to go without throwing interceptions, but they're part of the game, they happen. The big test is, if one does happen, bouncing back from it and continuing on to try and move the team so we can score points."
That shouldn't be a problem for Garrard, who possesses both the temperament and athletic skill to avoid making bad situations worse.
"One of the things I think helps Dave a lot is that he is very even-keeled," Koetter said. "He's the same guy every day. He's never too high, he's never too low.
"The other thing David has is the ability to move around in the pocket. I'm not talking about scrambling all over the place, but moving around in the pocket. And he has a little quick-strike release where he can release the ball from different angles based on what the rush is doing. It helps him to get out of some jams.
"Dave can make some plays with his legs and create some plays on scrambles or on runs that can still make the offense move the chains. That's another dimension that Dave brings to the table. Some guys can't move, and if the play doesn't work the way it's supposed to, you're dead in the water."
Some of Garrard's success this season resulted from having six years of NFL experience, especially his career-high 10 starts in '06. Some is due to the instruction and guidance of Koetter and new quarterbacks coach Mike Shula.
"Coming from the college level (Koetter from Arizona State, where he had been head coach, and Shula from Alabama, where he had been head coach), it makes them more detail-oriented just because they were working with younger guys and had to go over a lot of the little things," Garrard said. "They really do a good job of going over small, little details like how many steps you're supposed to take on this particular route, when there's this coverage you're supposed to go here with the ball ... a lot of things that a lot of veteran NFL coaches sometimes will breeze on by just because they assume the player already knows it.
"I also think Dirk calls the right plays at the right times. He does a great job of calling the game and getting us into the best plays and putting together a really good game plan."
When Koetter joined the Jaguars, he knew there could be some resistance to his teachings. Unlike those at the collegiate level, NFL quarterbacks tend to be set in their ways. Koetter was pleasantly surprised to find both Leftwich, who has since joined the Atlanta Falcons, and Garrard receptive to the coaching that he and Shula provided.
"As Jack always says, 'Handle your business like a professional,' and David did that," Koetter said. "And when he got into those preseason games, he just played lights-out."
He will likely need to be that good on Monday night. Given the opponent and the prime-time television audience, Garrard is well aware that he has a chance for a career-defining performance.
But that will be the furthest thought from his mind after the opening kickoff.
"The way I handle big-time games like that is treating them like they are another game," Garrard said. "Once you start living and breathing the hype, and getting yourself all jacked up and nervous, now your system is out of whack and you go out and just start blowing chunks everywhere. I handle it as, 'I'm playing football. I'm playing the game I love.'
"When you're on the field, it doesn't matter if it's Monday night, Thursday night, or Sunday morning. It's this team against their team on the field. It's what can I do to help my team score points."
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