Sacksonville Should Prepare For the Worst; Hope For The Best

When it comes to sports, I'm more of a realist than a pessimist. There's a difference, but both philosophies point to the distinct possibility that Jacksonville will not be in the Super Bowl next year. When you finish second in the AFC only to Tom Brady (who has to retire eventually), you might think it makes you a shoe-in for next year. And that could very well be, but there's no guaranty, and it's certainly harder to make this whole Sacksonville thing into any kind of a dynasty. That's I was sad to see the team lose.

I grew up in Milwaukee as a Packers fan. Sure, you know the whole Titletown reference, but here are the records for Packers teams in the years I was a fan, at least the first 20 years:
4-10
5-9
4-10
8-7
5-11
5-10-1
8-8
5-3-1 *
8-8
8-8
8-8
4-12
5-9
4-12
10-6
6-10
4-12
9-7
9-7 *
9-7 *
*Playoff loss

That's a 128-174-1 record from birth through high school and into college. Then Brett Favre was taking over, and then Aaron Rodgers--yes, it got better, but the winning percentage was .424 over those years, with three playoff appearances (one during a strike year).

Over a similar number of years, Jacksonville has gone 165-203-0 or .448 winning percentage. Blake Bortles or Leonard Fournette might be your Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers. Or not. You don't know these things until they really happen. I thought Don Majkowski was going to lead the Pack back from obscurity. It was his injury rather than his skills that led to the Promised Land of the playoffs and eventually winning a Super Bowl.

2018 may or may not be THE moment for the Jaguars. It very well could be, from what I saw, and I'm sure a lot of you think you deserve it after all this waiting. I'm just reminding you that even the storied franchises have had periods of waiting. More recently, the Pack has had two dynasties that never materialized beyond a single Super Bowl victory. Just going to the game IS huge, and just winning one is even bigger.

I hope Jax does go back next year. The Packers will still be my team, and I'll still hate the Bears way more than I care about the Titans or Texans, but it's fun when the home team is winning. I don't want local Jax kids to grow up watching a team struggle as much as the Pack did from the mid-70s until the mid-90s. I mean any more kids, since the record for the past two decades has been pretty similar.

I know there's always next year, but it sure was almost this year. I just hope 20 years later here will go a little better than it has for me and my favorite baseball (Brewers) and basketball (Bucks) teams for this town, because I'm still waiting on those next years. As for the Packers, most years have ended in disappointment. It's not always a 4th and 26 kind of disappointment or a Coughlin-led Giants team in 2008 beating us at home, but any year that does not include a Super Bowl win is a let-down. And that's why I wanted this disappointing year to at least be good for Jax.

Also, I wanted the Patriots to lose. Boston fans are the worst, and if anyone doesn't deserve to win constant championships in every sport out there, it's the Boston fans. They are like the offspring of Satan and a foul-mouthed witch--a real one, not the fake ones from Salem--who were never held or hugged as infants, and then became pirates off the coast of Madagascar because pirating in American isn't a thing anymore. Think of it this way: Meaner than Philly fans; stupider than Dallas fans; angrier than Raiders fans; and more potty-mouthed than New York fans. In fact, if this was a blog dictated to a phone by a similar guy to me but in Boston (I'm assuming he can't actually write), I would have used the F-word two dozen times by now, made several racist comments, and put your mother down. I'm totally serious. And I think they are, too.