Despite having by far their strongest roster in the Gus Bradley era, Jacksonville has started 0-2 for the third time in four years. While the team most certainly won't ring the alarm bells just yet, some around the club are doing it for them.
Jacksonville.com came out with a three-pronged breakdown Sunday night that addressed the problems with Blake Bortles, the inability to get star wideout Allen Robinson the ball and the general sense that this hyped offseason is leading to nowhere.
But is it really that bad?
The optimist will say to focus on the Packers game, which they nearly won on opening weekend before heading cross country to get beat in a sleepy game against the Chargers that simply got out of control. The Buccaneerscan tell you what that's like.
The Jaguars are still a top 15 offense, their eye-covering third-down percentage (23 percent) has to rise back toward the mean at some point, 2015 top-five pick Dante Fowler logged a pair of sacks and the return of Chris Ivory should help stabilize the running game -- which should also help even out Bortles.
The pessimist -- or realist, at this point maybe -- pegged this Chargers game as a must-win and gawked at the number of penalties (13), turnovers (3), net rushing yards (69) and 6.1 yards per passing play average.
"Terrible," linebacker Paul Posluszny told Jacksonville.com. "I just felt like we were past situations like this -- missed assignments that result in touchdowns, games that are this lopsided. We need drastic improvement."
The problem with a promise-filled season is that a start like this can take the air out of a team pretty quickly. This Sunday's matchup against the Ravens and next week's game against the Colts could have the team's 2016 fate stamped before their bye week. Or, it could prove that we all need a little optimist in us even when things go south.
