Calais Campbell hasn’t been a member of the Jaguars for too long, but he’s been in Jacksonville long enough to know that there’s nothing like a little bit of unbridled optimism about the team during offseason workouts.
When the record is 0-0, it’s time to make big pronouncements about the team’s potential to turn in a winning season for the first time in a long time even if last year’s (and 2015’s and 2014’s and so on) fell flat. Campbell, who signed with Jacksonville as a free agent in March, said that he doesn’t think there’s any holes on the roster.
“I truly believe this team has every piece to the puzzle,” Campbell said, via the team’s website. “We don’t need anything else. ... All we have to do is take care of the small details, and put the things in place. The front office is doing a great job making it competitive, bringing the right guys in to compete. That will allow us to continue to get better. I have confidence in this coaching staff to prepare us so we’re all moving in unison. And I have confidence that my teammates are going to leave it all on the field every day, trying to win now. We have big goals, lofty goals, but all of that will take care of itself. Right now we’re going to take care of the details.”
One lesson Campbell likely learned in Arizona is that having the right (or wrong) quarterback can make all the difference for a team. It was a lot easier to win with Kurt Warner or Carson Palmer than it is with Ryan Lindley or John Skelton regardless of how the rest of the roster looked and that brings us to another recurring Jaguars theme.
There’s plenty of talent populating the Jaguars roster, but it’s mitigated by questions about whether Blake Bortles is a quarterback who can lead a team to great success. Unless those questions are answered in the affirmative, the Jaguars may remain a team that always looks better in May than it does in November and December.