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After 30 seasons, maybe it's time to ask: Are the Jaguars cursed? | Mark Woods
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- After 30 seasons, maybe it's time to ask: Are the Jaguars cursed? | Mark Woods
The NFL is built for parity. It is hard to win consistently. It also is hard to lose consistently. And yet the Jaguars have been remarkably good at the latter, making it to the playoffs only twice since 2007.
They didn't lose last week, largely because they didn't play. But after a 52-6 loss at Detroit the previous week — the biggest margin of defeat in Jaguars ' history — they're guaranteed another losing season.
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A year that began with owner Shad Khan saying this was the best Jaguars team ever assembled has gone so awry that the franchise could end up with the first pick in the NFL draft for the third time in five years.
So do you pin that on the owner? The coaching staff? Quarterback? Defense? Front office?
Yes, yes, yes. But even when things have changed, the Jaguars have not. So at this point, maybe it's time to raise another age-old sports question.
Are the Jaguars cursed?
Curses have long been a part of sports lore. The Boston Red Sox had the Curse of the Bambino , an 86-year championship drought traced to the decision to sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919.
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The Chicago Cubs had the Curse of the Billy Goat , started in 1945 when William "Billy" Sianis, owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, brought his pet goat to Game 4 of the World Series against the Detroit Tigers. When fans complained about the goat's stench, Sianis and his pet were booted from Wrigley Field. On the way out, Siannis was said to put a curse on the Cubs, proclaiming they'd never win a World Series again.
And until 2016, they did not.
Think about what has happened to the Jaguars. One win from the Super Bowl, Myles Jack wasn't down . In his first quarter as a Jaguar, Nick Foles broke his collarbone . After a loss in Ohio, Urban Meyer went dancing .
OK, maybe that was just bad officiating, bad luck and a really bad decision.
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Or maybe all of that and more is part of the curse.
Before you can break a curse, first you have to identify it. So for this Sunday, as the Jaguars face the Houston Texans , I've started a list of possibilities.
The Curse of the Teal Ax
In 2003, the year after former owner Wayne Weaver fired Tom Coughlin after three consecutive losing seasons, new coach Jack Del Rio had an unusual motivational tool put in the locker room: a double-bladed ax, the handle painted teal, and an oak tree stump.
The mantra: "Keep chopping wood."
Players were encouraged to take a swing. When punter Chris Hanson gave it a try, the ax ended up in his lower right leg.
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The ax and stump were immediately removed from the locker room. And I would've guessed they were long gone, probably buried in a landfill somewhere. But a few years ago ESPN's Mike DiRocco tracked down the ax , still in an office at the stadium.
The Curse of the Terrible Towel Joke
Ten years ago — on Oct. 5, 2014 — the Jaguars' mascot, Jaxson de Ville, made headlines for holding up a Pittsburgh Steelers ' "Terrible Towel" in one hand and a sign in the other that said: "Towels Carry Ebola."
The next day, the Jaguars issued an apology, saying the team was "unaware of this inappropriate sign" until after it was displayed.
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The Jaguars lost that game to the Steelers, falling to 0-5 on the way to a 3-13 season — the middle of a run of six consecutive seasons with at least 10 losses.
The Curse of Kismet(s)
It has become part of fall in Jacksonville , the arrival of Khan's yachts, each with a name that means "destiny" or "fate." While the Kismets keep getting bigger, Jacksonville's fate seems to be to keep adding to the years without a Super Bowl — other than hosting one back in 2005, which might be another possible curse. The Curses of Sportswriters.
The Curse of the Swimming Pools
In 2014, a $63 million upgrade to the stadium included the addition of two pools on the north endzone deck. Ever since then, it feels like the Jaguars have been treading water, coming up for an occasional gasp of playoff air, only to sink again.
Fans enjoy the northwest pool during the second quarter of an NFL football matchup Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024 at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla. The Packers edged the Jaguars 30-27 on a last-second field goal.
The Curse of the Coaching Suit
Once upon a time, NFL coaches wore suits. Picture Vince Lombardi, Tom Landry, Hank Stram. By 2006, though, NFL coaches were wearing NFL-approved Reebok athletic wear. But the league allowed 49ers coach Mike Nolan to wear a suit (made by Reebok) for two games as a tribute to his father.
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Del Rio liked the idea and the day after Nolan first wore his suit, the Jaguars coach wore a black suit and blue tie for a Monday Night game against the Giants and former Jaguars Tom Coughlin.
The Jaguars won that game . They also beat the Colts a few weeks later with Del Rio wearing a suit. But they lost their final three games to finish 8-8. And after going 11-5 the next season, they began the franchise's longest postseason drought.
Meanwhile, Coughlin would go on to win two Super Bowl titles in New York.
The Curse of England
The Brits have their share of sports curses. So maybe some of them have rubbed off on all those trips to London?
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The Jaguars first played in London on Oct. 27, 2013. They lost 42-10 to the 49ers to fall to 0-8. And while they've been a .500 team in London since then — including a loss and win this season — what has happened back in the states has doomed quite a few seasons.
Since that first London game, they've lost more than two-thirds of their games in the United States.
For what it's worth, the Brits also have some interesting approaches to reversing curses . For instance, when a clairvoyant told a Birmingham City manager the way to break a nearly century-old gypsy curse on the club was to urinate on all four corners of the team's field, what do you think the manager did?
"We went three months without winning … We were desperate, so I pissed in all four corners, holding it in while I waddled round the pitch," Barry Fry said. "Did it work? Well, we started to win and I thought it had, then they (expletive) sacked me, so probably not."
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The Curse of the Brink's Truck
In the summer of 2019, cornerback Jalen Ramsey showed up for training camp in an armored bank truck , with fake money bags and his own hype man. Ramsey, who wanted a contract extension, had joked on social media that he was going to "ask for so much money, they have to put me on lay-away."
He didn't get a contract extension. By Week 2, he was feuding with coach Doug Marrone. By Week 4, he was on the inactive list with a back injury — which seemed to heal quite nicely once he was traded to the Los Angeles Rams .
Two years later, Ramsey had a Super Bowl ring and the Jaguars had, over the course of two seasons, a 20-game losing streak — the NFL's longest in the 21st century.
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The TrEverBank Curse
The Jaguars played their home opener this season at TrEverBank Stadium — renamed after quarterback Trevor Lawrence as part of his collaboration with the stadium's naming rights sponsor.
It felt like a fun idea — if all went well — and the kind of thing that could backfire if the Jaguars didn't win, if Lawrence had a rough game or got hurt.
Temporary signage has been placed at EverBank Stadium, the home of the Jacksonville Jaguars, to reflect the change to "TrEverBank Stadium" for the home opener on Sept. 15 against the Cleveland Browns. Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence has a sponsorship deal with EverBank, which has the naming rights to the stadium.
The Jaguars lost to the Browns and all of the above have happened since. Now here we are in the 30th NFL season in Jacksonville, with the Jaguars one of only four NFL teams to have never played in a Super Bowl, still a long way from Billy Goat or Bambino territory, but bringing to mind the "Ted Lasso" episode where AFC Richmond dealt with a curse by having the players throw something of meaning into a bonfire.
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Sure, that's just a sitcom. But it leads to another possible curse.
The Curse of 'Ghosts'
In the NFL, the schedule reveal has become quite the production. And one of the best ever came from the Jaguars for the 2023 season.
They were coming off their surprising run to end the previous season. The video played off a call from broadcaster Frank Frangie — "What an incredible season! You couldn't write this stuff!" — leading to actor Asher Grodman sitting in the empty stands, taking off his sunglasses and saying, "Actually, I did."
More: Gene Frenette: Hilarious Jaguars' schedule release video almost worthy of 'Emmy' award
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On the CBS sitcom "Ghosts," Grodman plays a ghost named Trevor, a tech bro who walks through the afterlife as he died, wearing a coat and tie but no pants.
While Grodman grew up in New York, he became a Jaguars fan because his father, who rooted for the seemingly cursed Lions, encouraged him to find his own team. He chose the Jaguars. So when he was asked to do the schedule release video — with the premise that, of course, the NFL is scripted and he is the team's head writer — he jumped at the opportunity.
A behind-the-scenes image of head coach Doug Pederson (left) and actor Asher Grodman (right) during the filming of the Jacksonville Jaguars 2023 schedule release video on Thursday, April 20, 2023 at TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville.
It was a really fun video, one Khan said would've fallen flat if they weren't coming off a "breakthrough season." But what has followed feels like an all-too-familiar script for Jaguars fans.
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After an 8-3 start in 2023, the Jaguars have lost 14 of their last 17 games, heading for another high draft pick that, in theory, should lead to parity. But we've seen this show before.
So maybe it's time to bring the entire cast of "Ghosts" to TrEverBank.
Proclaim that the name now is for Trevor the Ghost. And just to be safe, have him wear a Reebok sports coat, arrive in Brink's Truck, burn Jaxson's towel, empty the pools, pee in the end zones and bury the hatchet at midfield.
mwoods@jacksonville.com
(904) 359-4212
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville Jaguars losing begs question of sports curse
