Columnist Dean Juipe: Early talk has Jaguars in the hunt

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4084.

A drizzling rain and its accompanying humidity did more than sap the offensive resources of a pair of teams that came into their Sunday game expecting a freewheeling shootout with a number of crisp scoring plays.

It also delayed getting an accurate, if indisputable, read on the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars.

Picked by many as this season's best bet to reach and win the Super Bowl, the Jaguars neither proved nor disproved that notion during a 41-3 victory over perennial championship contender San Francisco.

Perhaps the most interesting looking game -- on paper -- of the first week of the regular season was a defensive struggle for the first half and all Jacksonville in the second. A monsoon that appears lodged over Florida led to a game where mistakes and critical penalties -- particularly by the 49ers -- were far more plentiful than the anticipated two-way offensive fireworks that had been a hot topic of discussion last week.

Much of the advance hyperbole was rendered meaningless by the rains, which also kept the game from attracting a capacity crowd in spite of its significance. That doesn't say a lot for the Jacksonville fans.

Yet, to be fair, maybe they're a little cautious about leaping on the Jaguars' bandwagon in spite of what has been written and said about their team in the past month. The primary culprit: Sports Illustrated, which picked Jacksonville to win the Super Bowl, and, to a lesser extent, USA Today, which has the Jags meeting but losing to the Minnesota Vikings in season finale.

In Las Vegas, the expert handicappers have been telling their audiences to bet the over on the Jaguars' season-victory proposition, pointing to the fairly weak AFC Central where they play and the fact Jacksonville's 1999 opponents were only 110-114 in 1998.

This is all heady stuff for a franchise that is only five years old, albeit one that has been a playoff participant the past three seasons. Jacksonville winning the Super Bowl? It's a prediction that caught more fans than not by surprise.

Yet the Jaguars have the offensive goods to pull it off and they, like all of their AFC counterparts, were helped by the season-ending injury suffered by New York quarterback Vinny Testaverde in the first half of the Jets' game with New England. Taking Testaverde from the Jets -- and having him replaced by Rick Mirer -- eliminates a considerable obstacle in Jacksonville's march to the Super Bowl.

With the 22nd-easiest schedule in the league the Jaguars won't lose too many times. Their head coach, Tom Coughlin, is also said to have curtailed his drill-sergeant routine and his new defensive coordinator, former Carolina head coach Dom Capers, may help a group that finished a poor 25th in total defense a year ago.

If he can get them into the middle of the pack defensively, the Jaguars have more than enough offensive to compensate. As they demonstrated in the second half against San Francisco when the rains subsided for a while, this team -- which includes All-Pro wide receiver Keenan McCardell of UNLV -- is fairly relentless and is capable of some big offensive games.

Super Bowl ready? Maybe, maybe not. But if you're betting football, the Jaguars and the over may be a weekly temptation.

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