NFL easing up on blackouts

Good news for Jacksonville Jaguars fans that can’t watch the games on television since they had a hard time selling out.

According to a report at USAToday.com, the NFL will be relaxing the blackout rules. The league will no longer require that home games are sold out to be televised on local television. I don’t care what the suits say, this idea makes perfect sense.

This season, games can be televised locally even when just 85% of tickets are sold. The Wall Street Journal reports that teams will be able to set their own “seat-sales benchmark” — as long as its at least 85% of total capacity — and when that benchmark is met games can be televised. “To discourage teams from setting easy benchmarks,” says WSJ, “teams will be forced to share more of the (ticket) revenue when they exceed it.”   

The relaxed blackout rules also make it easier for fans to view the games at home since a majority of hardcore NFL fans can’t afford the tickets to go to a game in today’s economy.

Justin Blackmon arrested on aggravated DUI charge

Jacksonville Jaguars rookie and former Oklahoma State standout, Justin Blackmon, was arrested on a complaint of aggravated DUI early Sunday in Stillwater, according to the Payne County Jail.

Blackmon was booked into jail about 10 a.m. The details are scarce right now.

According to Oklahoma law, an aggravated DUI is when one’s blood alcohol content is .15 or greater. This is Blackmon’s second alcohol related arrest in three years. He was nailed in Carrollton,Texas after attending a Monday night game in Dallas in October 2010.

Blackmon has yet to sign a contract with the Jaguars as negotiations have started two weeks ago.

That explains why he was hanging out in Stillwater.  

David Garrard has interest in the Detroit Lions

Last season was pretty rough for former Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback David Garrard. Garrard was released from Jacksonville to make room for then rookie Blaine Gabbert close to the end of training camp. After that Garrard elected to have back surgery. Garrard still had teams making offers for his services including the Oakland Raiders, even though he elected to take the season off.

After a year off Garrard has put the surgery behind him and his agent says that he has been medically cleared to play. Garrard has planned to visit some NFL teams and with the way quarterbacking is these days he shouldn’t have a hard time finding a job. One of the teams he has interest in is the Detroit Lions.

“If the Lions are interested in David’s services, we will listen,” said Al Irby, Garrard’s agent. “Because of the chain reaction Peyton (Manning) will cause, teams that inquired about David before, may change their mind when certain quarterbacks become available. It is my opinion that David is the next-best quarterback now on the market. Once Peyton makes a decision, based on recent activity, David will be a hot quarterback.


“David informed me not to turn down any team’s inquiry. He wants to examine every situation. He is open to compete for a starting job, assume the starting job, or backup the current starter. He believes that the best player will ultimately play. He is very confident in his ability to do any job for the right team. All he wants is a chance to win.” 


With the Lions potentially losing backups Shaun Hill and Drew Stanton in free agency, the Lions could be an intriguing option, for the right price.

Garrard has 76 career starts in 86 games since 2002. He led Jacksonville to the playoffs in 2007 and was a Pro Bowl selection in 2010. 


Garrard should be one of the top backup options in free agency. If he’s willing to sign for the right price he could be worth a flier. If the Lions lose Hill and Stanton to free agency quarterback would become another priority for the team in the draft and free agency.

Fred Taylor Gives Jack Del Rio A Bus Job

Talk about kicking a person when they’re down. Jack Del Rio was fired by the Jacksonville Jaguars and it didn’t take long for people to start piling on. Former Jaguar running back Fred Taylor threw Del Rio under the bus and put it in reverse for good measure.

In an interview with Eric Adelson, Taylor explained the differences between playing for Super Bowl winning coaches Tom Coughlin and Bill Belichick and playing for Del Rio. In the end, Taylor says Del Rio simply wasn’t a good coach.

“With Coughlin, if you came in, if you overstep, you’re screwed,” says Taylor, who played for Coughlin in Jacksonville from his rookie year in 1998 until the coach was let go in 2002. “With Jack, you never knew what you were getting. You don’t know if you’ll get a hard-ass one day, a buddy-buddy one day. You never really knew.”

Everyone knows about Coughlin’s hardcore ways and he was dead on with that assessment. I don’t know much about Del Rio but Taylor was there and played for both so he should be an authority abot the differences between the two.

Asked if he felt Del Rio played favorites, Taylor doesn’t hesitate.



“[Expletive] yeah. Hell yeah,” he says. “Why do you think I’m not there? There wasn’t any falloff in my production. I expressed my willingness to take a paycut. I just wanted to be there and be a part of the community. I wanted to finish my career there. Just because we had this new running back. All we had to do was switch roles. ‘Fred, Maurice [Jones-Drew] is going to be the starter.’ Fine, no problem. I wasn’t a virus in the locker room. I worked my ass off — everything.”

Sounds exactly like the way he handled his quarterback situations. From the releases of Byron Leftwich and David Garrard and the current handling of rookie Blaine Gabbert. Ironically, Taylor has some words about that also.

“Pulling that trigger was a bit premature,” Taylor says. “If you make that decision, make it a month out. Quite honestly, that kind of thing can ruin careers.” When talking about Garrard’s release. I also think if he was going to cut Garrard, do it at the start of training camp, not right before the season.

The handling of Gabbert was also a topic. Gabbert was pulled from a game in favor of Luke McCown.

“You’re 3-8,” says Taylor. “Take him out and that is going to establish the season?”

All in all Taylor wasn’t pleased with Del Rio’s shortcomings on the offensive side of the ball. Trust me, most of the time the offense was offensive.

“At the end of the day, [Del Rio]’s not a head coach,” Taylor says. “He’s a great defensive coach. But he’s not a head coach.”

Well Del Rio’s not a head coach, because he’s unemployed. Personally he overacheived some of the time, but when the Jags had expectations they came up short. Way to kick a man when he’s out the door Fred.

   

   

Jones-Drew Won’t Apologize To Jay Cutler

When Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler missed the second half of the NFC championship game due to a fringe knee injury, Jacksonville Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew led the brigade of NFL players ripping on Cutler and calling him soft, a jake, anything that you can say that can insult a player.

Today Jones-Drew says he’s not backing down from anything he said about Cutler. Jones-Drew took to Twitter when he learned that Cutler was sitting out the second half with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. I’ll say this about Jones-Drew, at least he hasn’t went back and said his account was hacked or he reflected upon it after x amount of time and felt he should make amends about the situation. In an interview with the NFL Network, Jones-Drew said he has no regrets.

“I don’t regret anything I do,” Jones-Drew said. “You think about everything you put out there. I’m not going to be one of those guys to say, ‘I shouldn’t have done it.’ Because I did it. I knew what I was doing when I tweeted it. I just didn’t know that many people were following me at the time.”

Asked if he had apologized to Cutler, Jones-Drew said he hasn’t seen Cutler but sees no reason that he would need to reach out.



“I haven’t gotten a chance to, but I wouldn’t apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong, I don’t think,” Jones-Drew said. “I didn’t commit a crime. I didn’t kill anyone or rape anyone or anything like that. I mean, I stated my opinion, and it seems like you get more backlash for that than committing a real crime in some sense. I feel like I didn’t do anything wrong, I just said what everybody else was thinking.”

Jones-Drew didn’t do anything wrong. If he hadn’t said it maybe someone else would’ve. I’m just glad he didn’t go back on what he said and claimed it was a mistake made by someone else. Clubber Lang would be proud for being a real man in this case. The only thing I might would be disappointed with is when he said that he didn’t know that many people were following him.

You’re a celebrity/entertainer/athlete, you have more followers than the average person.