Safety Barry Church signed with the Cowboys as an undrafted free agent in 2010. He started 63 games in his seven seasons in Dallas, including 12 last season when he was voted a team captain for a team that finished 13-3.
But Church left the Cowboys in the offseason, signing a four-year, $26 million deal with the Jaguars.
In five months, Church has come to the conclusion that the Jaguars have more talent than the Cowboys. He didn’t go as far as teammates Malik Jackson and Calais Campbell in predicting a Super Bowl run for his new team, but Church obviously has faith the Jaguars can do at least as well as the Cowboys did last season.
“The culture is pretty much the same [in Jacksonville as in Dallas],” Church said in quotes distributed by the team. “We have a real close group like we did in Dallas. We have a real close group here. We had a real close group, but I was just a little bit younger when I was in Dallas. I feel like we have a lot more talent than we did over there. We just have to keep plugging away and get ready for Week 1.”
And it took Church only two training camp practices to determine the Jaguars practice harder than the Cowboys.
“It is a lot more demanding [than the Cowboys],” Church said. “A lot more periods. I think we had about 18 today. Back on my old team we probably had about 12 or something like that. Like coach said, there are a lot of new players in here. The coaching staff is trying to figure out who fits where. We need a lot of periods, and we need all that to get the chemistry down. We are just working on that and getting ready.”
The Jaguars have won a combined 11 games the past three seasons and have not made the playoffs since 2007, though they enter 2017 brimming with confidence.