The Jaguars had been treading water for a few years and finally bottomed out in 2012, winning just 2 games. GM Gene Smith was fired for building this team and rightfully so. The Jaguars hadn’t had a winning season in any of their last 5 seasons, going 27-53. Smith whiffed on numerous high draft picks, didn’t get much out of the later rounds (including the selection of a punter in the 3rd round of last year’s draft), and done of his big free agent acquisition had panned out over the past few years.
The most notable and probably the most damaging of his mistakes was the selection of quarterback Blaine Gabbert with the 10th pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. The Jaguars traded up from 16 to 10 to grab him, giving up a 2nd round pick in the process, and he proved to be nothing more than a media hyped kid who looked the part, but couldn’t get it done on the field, going 5-18 in 2 seasons and playing just as poorly as that sounds.
It’s always easy to play hindsight GM, but this move looked doome...
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January 01, 2013
