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Week 3 - Jacksonville Jaguars (1-1) @ Arizona Cardinals (2-0) -3

At home again, this time to a young Jacksonville team helmed by Byron Leftwich and three receivers with a grand total of 1 year's NFL experience between them. Since this is only the third game of the season, "Fragile Fred" Taylor is the featured tailback - it being at least two weeks too early for his traditional cruciate-ligament injury. Jeff Sparks - a player we were looking at seriously in this year's draft - is the tight-end operating alongside a very so-so line.

The d-line, on the other hand, is excellent. Anchored by John Henderson and Hugh Douglas (who the people who rate guys for Madden plainly haven't seen play in the last couple of years), they're backed up by a similarly strong group of linebackers. Just as last week, though, the glaring weakness is in the secondary. Rookie starter Greg Roberts can't tackle while his 2nd-year partner, Tiki Lewis, can't run.

Still, it's not like they're facing two Pro-Bowl wideouts and a quarterback with one of the biggest arms in the league, is it?

Oh.

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It's still Arizona. It's still hot. This time I remember to stick the team in our rather natty all-white alternate strip.

Because there's nothing cooler than an albino, is there?

The first Jag possession ends in a punt that sees Brian Westbrook swerving through traffic for a 31-yard return that sets us up at their 31. It takes one entire play for us to confirm our suspicions regarding the state of the Jacksonville secondary - Bryant Johnson leaves Tiki Lewis playing musical statues on an out-and-up, Jeff Blake launches a perfectly-flighted bomb and that's six.

A massacre in the making? Not if Jeff Blake has anything to say about it. Johnno blows past his man yet again, but with a touchdown there for the taking Blake underthrows his target and a mightily relieved Lewis hauls the ball in for a pick. The Jags take advantage of the short field, Leftwich tying the game on a 3rd and 10 from the 12 finding Zach "Who?" McDaniel at the front of the endzone. Damn.

Four straight runs net us two first downs, then just as the Jag secondary is thanking their lucky stars that someone else is getting picked on, Anquan Boldin runs a ten-yard hook, turns, slaps a tackler away and trots 27 yards to put us back in front.

Come on, guys. There has to be a way we can shoot ourselves in the foot here. You're just not trying!

The man to step up is Brian Westbrook who, as the observant reader will recall, was brought in at great expense specifically to help solidify our special-teams play. And not brought in at great expense to, for example, pick up from Terry Fair the nasty habit of inexplicably muffing punts despite being under zero pressure then watch dozily as the ball's recovered by the opposition and returned for the tying score.

The goon.

"It's alright!" shouts the Jacksonville secondary. "We won't let you lose this!" From the I-formation, one safety follows the tight end out to the right, the other tracks Brian Westbrook into the left flat leaving a huge honking gap deep between the hashmarks. Johnno, who's going to be asking God nicely tonight whether he can be covered by Tiki Lewis every week, comes cross-field into the open zone, makes a fantastic adjustment to a ball thrown a bit behind him and outruns everyone 80 yards to the house. JAC 14-21 ARI.

Following a Shaun Springs interception, we drive down to the Jacksonville red zone. On 3rd and 6, the Jags sling a corner-blitz on us, but Blake sees it coming and pops the ball over the head of Tiki Lewis (who's really working hard to try and get himself on my Christmas card list). Westbrook makes the catch, fronts up the safety then cuts hard, breaking to the sideline. He's hit hard a couple of yards out, but refuses to go down and lunges over the line with second-effort. Yeah. You probably want to be making a few big plays if you were the guy who just handed the other team a touchdown on the proverbial silver platter.

Three minutes to play in the half, fourteen points up. Comfortable halftime lead, here we come! Ah. Fragile Fred breaks three tackles in a 65-yard touchdown run. Hmm. Okay, well. Two minutes to play, seven points up. That'll do. Oh. Anquan Boldin coughs the ball up at the Jag 10, then as the clock drops to double-ought, Taylor repeats the dose. Through a crowd, out the other side, 87 yards, JAC 28-28 ARI

Haemorrhaging rush yards and points. We're just kicking it old-skool this week, aren't we?

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What's killing us today - alright, not killing us all that much, given the whole scoring-28-points-in-the-first-half thing - is that the Jaguars are absolutely shutting our run-game down cold. No rushing = no time of possession = more chances for the other team's offence = people slowly starting to realise that our defence isn't quite as good as it looked in the first couple of games.

The struggles are still in evidence on the first drive of the second half, one that sees us pick up about 40 stuttering yards before a drop by Freddie Jones on a 3rd and 4 brings Thingamigummy Gramatica onto the field for a 43-yarder that splits the uprights and puts us back on top by three.

Our defensive style has been a little different this year - I've made a conscious effort to call fewer blitzes at more unpredictable times, and to use zone schemes more often. The result at this early stage of the season seems to be fewer sacks, but far more turnovers - such as when we lob a full blitz at the Jags on 2nd and long that their offensive line shows absolutely no inclination towards blocking. With at least three slavering defenders closing in Byron Leftwich elects to go for the ever-popular "The Ball's Gone, Now Please Don't Hit Me" option, firing up the sideline toward rookie speedster Lester Moss, somehow failing to notice that Jed Bowden, Playmaker Extraordinaire, is stride for stride with the inside track on the receiver. Bowden reaches in and just takes the thing away - his fifth interception in three games.

It takes us nine tedious plays to go thirty whole yards, but I don't give much of a toss because a 2-yard Marcel Shipp plunge puts us ten points ahead, and that's as close as Jacksonville get. Just as in the San Francisco game last week, the fourth quarter is a sloppy affair featuring two teams flailing at each other ineffectually. But as in the San Francisco game last week, that's more than enough to see us home.

Alright, maybe I spoke to soon on the "defence not as good as it looked" thing. JAC 28-38 ARI advances us to 3-0.

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(c) daniel roe 2004