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Jags have look of a contender Even the practice facilities take on Coughlin's persona
This is the sixth in a series of postcards Sports Illustrated's Peter King will e-mail from his NFL training camp tour. Friday, July 27
Team: Jacksonville Jaguars Site: ALLTEL Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla., at the three practice fields the Jags use year-round. Beautiful fields. I mean, anal-compulsive beautiful fields. Putting-green short grass, soft (all three 100-yard fields are lay on a sandy base), and all are crowned perfectly. The morning practice was held on fields one and two, the afternoon workouts on fields two and three. The fields, of course, scream Tom Coughlin in organization, order, neatness and efficiency. Five observations from practice that you just can't get anywhere else: 1. If the Chicago Bears really had a chance to get linebacker Kevin Hardy on draft day and passed (which is true), they're nuts. In a seven-on-seven drill this afternoon, Hardy faded back into pass coverage, helping out on wideout Keenan McCardell. Mark Brunell threw, a bit high, and Hardy leapt high -- he'd have easily been a foot above the rim -- to tip the ball away. It got intercepted. Big-league play, and it looked like just another effort for Hardy. 2. Wideout Jimmy Smith, who spent 33 days in the hospital this offseason with a stomach ailment that forced three surgeries, looked fluid and determined in the two shorts-and-T-shirts practices in the 89-degree heat. Coughlin is holding him back, making no prediction when he'll get full-contact work. But Coughlin and Smith both said after the morning work that he'd play Opening Day. "That's what I've been aiming for every day of my ordeal," Smith told me at lunch. 3. Marcus Stroud looks like a load, a 304-pound plugger crucial to the middle of the Jags' defense. 4. Last spring, Matt Millen told me that of the three Michigan offensive linemen -- Steve Hutchinson, Jeff Backus and Mo Williams -- he thought Williams had a chance to be the best player three or four years down the road. Drafted in the second round by the Jags, Williams already is projected to be the bookend right tackle to Tony Boselli on the left side. Coughlin loves him. 5. Florida Times-Union beat man Bart Hubbuch, a rookie in Jacksonville, was gently admonished to stand during the afternoon workout. Coughlin rules. No one sits on the practice fields, not even the press. Opinion/factoid that might be interesting only to me: Reporters and all camp visitors are required to watch practices in a box, maybe 10 yards long by five wide, on the sideline of fields one or three. Steve Spurrier, whose coaches have had to stand inside the box to watch practice, has christened it "the penalty box." The food: Just OK. The Jags eat in a large conference room at the Radisson Hotel near downtown, where the players bunk during training camp. Friday's fare:
Overall, and this indicates how spoiled I am from all this free food, I've got to say I've had much better meals in the first week of my camp sojourn. Dear NFL Junkie ... Nothing profound here, just a judgment that Coughlin seems pretty relaxed and happy and relieved of the pressure he felt last year, when injuries decimated his team. This morning, walking off the practice field, he regaled a few scribes with the story of his family vacation. [BULLETIN! COUGHLIN NORMAL! TAKES A VACATION! HAS A SLURPEE!] He went to the Vatican City. It sounded like if he had thrown his Catholic weight around he could have gotten an audience with the Pope, but that's not Coughlin's style. His style was to get within a first down of the big man in a big group of people, including his family, and just admire the view. He said he liked the Sistine Chapel quite a bit. "That Michelangelo," he said, "was quite a character." That's what I've heard, too. Anyway, my impression of the Jags is that they seem like contenders again, with the weight of the salary cap lifted off their collective shoulder. The cap didn't maim them, though I would have preferred that they had bitten more of the bullet this year instead of having to go through the same problem again next year. The only potentially very good player who had to leave because of the cap was tackle Leon Searcy, and he missed last year with an injury anyway. This team might be tougher than we think. Next up: Tennessee Titans. Check back soon for more of Peter King's Postcards from Camp.
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