NFL: Jacksonville Jaguars, and the value of being a loser

Jacksonville Jaguars fans, who haven’t seen their team have a winning season since 2007, are used to wearing the paper bag of shame by now [GETTY IMAGES]

“Winning isn’t everything…it’s the only thing” – Vince Lombardi

Sport is the ultimate results-driven industry. Winning is the single most important thing, and to most serious sportsmen it is the only thing. Vince Lombardi wasn’t the first to say it, and he won’t be the last. Whether by a clinical and emphatic performance or by sheer luck, everybody just wants to win.

It feels completely outlandish and unnatural, therefore, to suggest that the best thing for a professional sports team is for them to keep on losing. But in the case of the Jacksonville Jaguars, that just might be exactly what they need.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are one of the worst franchises in professional sports. They haven’t had a winning season since 2007, with a combined record during that time set at a depressing 27-60. This season is just more of the same, as the hapless North Florida team find themselves ranked dead last in the National Football League with a winless 0-8 record and an average losing margin of 22 points.

Blaine Gabbert

The main reason for the Jaguars’ inadequacy, not just this season but in 2012 as well, has been the disappointing quarterback play from their two starters – Blaine Gabbert and Chad Henne.

In 2011, Jacksonville parted ways with long-time quarterback David Garrard in favour of Blaine Gabbert, who they drafted out of Missouri with the 10th overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. Then in 2012, they signed Chad Henne, a two year starter in Miami, to be Gabbert’s back-up.

Neither move has worked out so well for the Jaguars.

In his three year career thus far, Gabbert has 22 interceptions and 20 fumbles against just 20 touchdowns and a lowly 53.3% completion percentage. This year, he has a league-worst 38.0 passer rating, throwing for 1 touchdown and 7 interceptions in the 3 games he has been involved. His 48.8% completion rate also ranks among the worst in the league. Clearly, the Missouri alum has not been the answer that the Jaguars thought he would be.

Chad Henne has been slightly better, although his 75.3 passer rating is still one of the worst in the league. That is mainly because he has more interceptions thrown (5) than touchdowns (3). He hasn’t been a complete disaster, but he is no more the answer for Jacksonville than Gabbert is.

The sad part about Jacksonville’s story is that they do not lack talent on the roster, especially on offence. Running back Maurice Jones Drew is a three time all-pro and the 2011 NFL rushing champion. Young receivers Cecil Shorts III and Justin Blackmon have proven that they are quality players this year.

Blackmon is averaging 103 yards per game this year which is the third best in the league behind only Calvin Johnson and Julio Jones. Shorts III’s 46 receptions, meanwhile, are tied for 10th best in the league.

The receivers have both done that playing with below average quarterback play, suggesting that this season is only a glimpse of what they could achieve were they to have a quality quarterback throwing to them. It isn’t crazy to think that they could become one of the most explosive and productive partnerships in the NFL.

It is abundantly clear that the Jags desperately need a difference-maker at the quarterback position. A good quarterback could kick-start the offence to become one of the league’s most productive. If they don’t get that, they are destined to stay on the floor of the AFC South for at least another half decade.

And the best way of getting a difference-making quarterback is to lose a lot of games in one season.

Unlike in Europe or Asia, United States-based sports like the NFL incorporate a draft system based on the team’s record in the previous season. The team with the worst record in one season will have the first overall pick in the upcoming off-season draft, allowing them to choose the very best player coming out of college. So the value of a team having a losing season lies in the ability to select the best player in the ensuing draft.

While it seems crazy to suggest that losing games could be in a team’s best interest, there is precedent in recent NFL history to suggest that a terrible losing season can be the best thing to happen to a franchise.

The Indianapolis Colts are a prime example. After nine back-to-back double-digit winning seasons under quarterback Peyton Manning, the perennial playoff contenders dropped to a league-worst 2-14 record in 2011 courtesy of a neck injury that side-lined Manning for the entire season.

During that historically bad campaign, it became increasingly apparent that the Colts’ botched season had presented them with a real opportunity; the chance to own the #1 overall pick and take college superstar quarterback Andrew Luck to be their quarterback of the future.

And with that, the “Suck for Luck” campaign was born.

Andrew Luck

The “Suck for Luck” idea was an unusual phenomenon in a league as fiercely competitive as the NFL. Here were the fans of a franchise, die-hard fans, who wanted their team to lose football games. It actually made sense. The fans understood what a franchise quarterback could do for their team, and were willing to endure short-term pain for the long-term gain that they believed Luck would bring.

If they had won three or four more games in that season, they probably would have drafted Brandon Weeden instead of Andrew Luck. And I think we all know how that would have gone. But they didn’t. Instead they kept on losing, and they landed Luck.

The losing season already looks to have been a saving grace for this franchise. In his rookie season, Luck led an average Colts team to an 11-5 record and a playoff berth. This season, he is continuing that legacy. At the halfway point in the season, Indy find themselves two games up at the top of the AFC South, beating three heavy Superbowl favourites along the way: Seattle, San Francisco and Denver.

Luck isn’t the only example. The Detroit Lions went to the playoffs in 2011 just two years removed from the 0-16 season which landed them Matthew Stafford. The Carolina Panthers feel similarly lucky with Cam Newton. The Charlotte-based team have improved their record every season since Newton was drafted, and seem primed now to become genuine playoff contenders.

So there is merit to the suggestion that losing can be beneficial. A losing season can ensure a high draft pick, a franchise quarterback and multiple winning seasons for the next decade or so. It would be tempting, therefore, to try and guarantee that this happens once all hopes of making the playoffs are lost. At 0-7, it is pretty clear that Jacksonville are in this exact position right now.

To be clear, the suggestion here is not that the Jaguars players should intentionally throw games. It is one thing to hope that a 0-16 or a 1-15 season happens organically. It is quite another to think your team should do it intentionally.

Having the people in your franchise intentionally losing games doesn’t work. Coaches and players just aren’t wired that way. What’s more, each and every player and coach on that Jaguars roster is worried, first and foremost, about their job. They aren’t worried about what the record is going to be next season, or whether they can make the playoffs in a couple of years if some things happen to help them.

This is a league in which you can lose your job in a heartbeat, and what it boils down to is that the players and coaches are people bringing in a pay-check just like everybody else in the world. A lot of them are supporting families. They are going to play hard every single down to make sure that pay-check keeps coming.

So this isn’t about the playing staff. They can’t stop playing or coaching hard, and it would be unfair to ask them to.

The only way for the Jaguars to ensure a high draft pick next year is if the management and ownership does it. They would need to subtly start making decisions that aren’t in the best short-term interests of the team; to essentially accept this season for what it is, give up on it, and start focusing on the future. An indirect sabotage of the season, if you will.

Believe it or not, the Jags at least appear to have embraced that idea. The trade that general manager David Caldwell made four weeks ago, handing their former first round pick and starting left tackle Eugene Monroe to the Baltimore Ravens for undisclosed draft picks, had the feel of a team who were giving up on the year and building for the future. Frankly, so does the decision to start the woefully inefficient Blaine Gabbert at quarterback whenever he’s healthy. Maybe they actually are losing on purpose.

NFL fans and sports fans will say that losing on purpose, however it is done, is a bad thing. It is unethical, and it ruins the integrity of the game. That’s true, but the powers that be in Jacksonville are unlikely to be suffering from an ethical dilemma; they probably care more about the interests of their own team than the integrity of the sport in general. Pride and ethics, when it comes to running a business, rarely take priority over the bottom line.

Ethics aside, the critics will also say that it isn’t practical to lose for a quarterback, because the #1 pick isn’t guaranteed to bring success.

Judging by the last 5 years, the odds are that your top-of-the-draft quarterback is in fact going to be an upgrade. Since 2008, the full list of quarterbacks taken in the top 10 picks of the Draft reads Matthew Stafford, Matt Ryan, Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III, Andrew Luck, Ryan Tannehill, Sam Bradford, Jake Locker, Mark Sanchez and Blaine Gabbert.

Of those 10, the only quarterbacks who could be considered a bust at this stage are Sanchez and Gabbert. All of the other quarterbacks have improved their team by their play, and are considered to be the long term answer for their respective franchise at the position.

So while nothing is guaranteed, taking a quarterback early in a draft is a statistically safe way to grab a franchise quarterback. The Jags would have nothing to lose and everything to gain from a 0-16 season. They already have a terrible quarterback. They already have a depleted fan base that isn’t showing up to watch games. They’re so unpopular in their own country that they’ve committed to playing multiple games in the UK over the next few years.

A shiny new quarterback with the #1 overall pick would fix that. Whether it’s Louisville’s Teddy Bridgewater or Clemson’s Tajh Boyd, it doesn’t really matter. Whoever it is, he would bring the crowd back. He would rejuvenate this franchise the way new owner Shahid Khan is so desperate to do. And he would almost certainly be an upgrade on Blaine Gabbert and Chad Henne.

The Jaguars clearly didn’t set out to lose at the start of the season. But now standing at 0-8, that coveted #1 draft spot must at least have crept into David Caldwell’s mind. Whether they are losing on purpose or not, we will probably never know. Any team that intentionally lost to improve their draft position could never admit it; it is the ultimate taboo in competitive sport.

But don’t be surprised if that is exactly what Jacksonville is doing this season. It makes business sense, it can’t damage them any more than they already have been…

…and as paradoxical as it sounds, at this point losing is the Jaguars best chance of winning.