Jaguars-Broncos: The Ambush At Mile High

in NFL history, defeating them thirty to twenty seven. The Jaguars go on, the Broncos go home. And at this point we were thinking the Broncos ever gonna win a Super Bowl? Real? Really? They they couldn't beat the jag Bars at home, Mike, Are they ever gonna win a Super Bowl? Because that's what it was for the Broncos back in the mid to late nineties before they broke through. Well, and it's not even you know, couldn't beat the Jaguars,

it's how they lost to the Jaguars as well. Chronicle going forward, like, it's one thing to lose the game straight up, it's another to dominate. But yeah, a lot of twists and turns in this one, and certainly for the Denver Broncos that it had a rough year the year before go out and the regular season flows including you know you you made an appearance in the schedule.

But all in all, I mean, you just see the names on this roster and you say, how did it not get over look nine Pro Bowlers, they were so loaded. I mean, I know they won back to back Super Bowls when when you get into the years after, but this was probably the best Denver team I had seen. It was the birth of Terrell Davis as a superstar, the beginning of those great Denver backfields where no matter who they put in there, they would rush for fifteen yards.

It could have been Mike Anders, sin Oorlandis, Gary Tatum, Bell, Ruben Drones. But this was the start of the Terrell Davis four year run that actually got him into the Hall of Fame. And I was at opening week. It was my my wife and I were It was our big life change. We had left ESPN when I was a production assistant and associate producer at ESPN, when I

was still behind the scenes. We were moving to California, to Los Angeles and we drove across country and we just so happened to be near Denver around the first week in the NFL season. I said, hey, can we stop and she happened to be, well, well, we were leaving the end of the summer and I said, well, where are we gonna be around this day? And because we were driving across country, it was it was such

a great trip. And I said when are we gonna be near around Denver and she was alwill be in Colorado, like early September. I'm like, okay, let's go to Jets Broncos. It's opening weeks. She was like, great, we go to the game and the Jets just get drilled. That's rich Coats. Oh my god, it was terrible. It's rich Goats. Was terrible. I was wearing my Neil O'donnald jersey to the game and we got thumped thirty one six. We were never competitive. Everybody.

I was the I was the big fun of guy in the in the in our section because I was one of the few people wearing a Jets jersey. And it wasn't even close. It was this is like, clearly, here are two teams that are going in different directions. It's the first game for Neil O'Donnell's Jets quarterback, and I'm like, oh, we got a new era. Oh no, no, we just absolutely stink and we're on our way to one in fifteen. But the Broncos it was a very workman like victory where it was, yeah, this is the Broncos.

They're so good, they're loaded. All right, we're gonna lose and just wasn't even close. Well, but you see the final score. But then you go back in and watch a little bit and take a quick peek at the box score. I mean Elway sixteen three yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions. Hey, we're in the game. Nah, Now, I think he said, well, he stopped playing after the first quarter. He came out, he rested the last three quarters of the game. Bill Musgrave was in the game. Uh Davis

only had what nine total yards? He had a touchdown. Only it was saying it was just all you had Webster Slaughter as your top target. Yeah he was. He he scored in that game, Yeah he did. He scored. Webster Slaughter, who was done, who was decent for the Browns in the eighties. Was our only plab Like, oh my goodness. The Broncos were just that much better. There were guys that had like jet voodoo dolls were running up to me sticking pins in it, going yeah, I

got your Neil O'donnald right here. And at that point I could say, yeah, and when's the last time you won a Super Bowl? And I'm going, oh, I don't know that I want to really, but this was the type of year. It was that they were so good they rested their starters the last three games of the season. It was Mike Shanahan's second year as Broncos head coach.

And here's the thing. Shanahan wasn't the genius yet. I mean, this was okay, Ken Denver get over the top and win a Super Bowl where they hadn't gotten there before. And he had two years as a head coach with the Raiders in the late eighties. It didn't work. The players didn't like him. Al Davis didn't like him. Davis and Shanahan fired each other's loyalists, so it was really long time for Mike Shanahan to get a job again

as a head coach. It was tough, lawsuits in the whole nine yards and no one trying to get his money yeah, no one thought, Okay, we can touch this guy. But finally the Broncos give him a chance, and it worked because it was a different person in charge. John Elwaye hated Dan Reeves, so this of course was going to be better. And voila. It's the same Broncos, but it's a new attitude, new outlook, new leadership. And here go to the Broncos and they have another great, great season.

Just an amazing assembly of talent and some of the guys who were like secondary players on this squad when you kind of look at it, you know, and trying to roll up. John Mobley was a rookie. Uh. You had a fullback in Detron Smith trying to help work through things, Fortrell Davis. Uh. And then you know, we we've got some of the stalwarts, some of the names you know, and some that you forget where where on a squad and our our colleague at Fox, Mark Shlareth,

part of the action there on the offensive line. I aged myself, I don't age other people quite so well. So when I see him and I see Alfred Williams and guys that I've gotten to know in the media world a little bit, it's always yeah, I guess they did play that long all right. Then you want to know the best story Mark Lareth ever told me when I said, I when I asked him, you know, when we worked at ESPN together, I asked him, I said, uh, how much do you run during a game? I mean,

I don't know how we got on the topic. How much you run during It was not that much at all, he goes. In fact, I'll tell you how I used to conserve my running. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, Well, let's just say l way through an interception, it was a fumble and the and and it was a long way going down the other way, like we fumbled inside the team's red zone and they were taking it back for a touch, And I said, okay, goes.

I ran as fast as I could until I knew I was out of frame and there was gonna be no video of me slowing down and stopping. So I would run real fast. And then when I knew that the the guy was because I'm not catching anybody. I'm an offensive lineman. When I knew I was at I would just peel off really slow and go, I'm not catching them. Because you know, coaches wanted to see you run all out, but you want to see it on tape. He was like, yeah, so I would just go back.

I would just kind of peel off and go Okay. I looked like I gave it a good run. I thought that was a pretty good story. That's not a bad strategy. So that's the Broncos, which were look quit essential. This was the Broncos team of of this of the nineties. Again, they're most talented lways still looking to breakthrough. For the Jaguars, it's just their second NFL season, right, They go four

and twelve their first year under Tom Coughlin. But after Jimmy Smith becomes a starter in the offense, takes off and this became a really potent offense. This was Mark Brunel, Jimmy Smith, Keenan McCardell. They were so potent. Andre Riisen was on this team, but he got demoted after Brunell threw five picks in a game against the Rams because they kind of blamed Andre Risen for not running the right route to get us, so they demoted him. And

this is it. I mean, the Jaguars squeak, I mean just take off and they squeak into the playoffs by winning six of their last seven. It was a huge run in Jacksonville. Became the flavor of the moment. They were fun, they were young. It was an expansion team. People bought their gear. Brunel was fun to watch, you know, it was outside the pocket. They can plays with his legs. This was a really, really fun team. It's like the Jaguars at this point became instant cult heroes in the NFL. Well,

that's just it. You had a lefty quarterback because you didn't see a lot of those what you have at that point. It would have been Steve Young. Yeah, I mean you didn't have a lot of guys running around, you know, South pause, weird spin on the ball, the fact that you know he absorbed hits like a lunatic at times. You gotta preserve yourself. Man. There's there's a lot of season left, but you saw him take off.

You you look at the the run game effective and as you mentioned, the insertion of Jimmy Smith into that starting lineup at one of the great receivers of the last twenty plus years that I don't think gets nearly enough attention when we put our lists together of how good he truly was. Yeah, this offense came together so fast. It wasn't just Smith and Keenan McCardell, who were together for a long time. Is the Jaguars really were. This was the the big three of the team for the

late nineties early two thousand's. This was Natron Means and James Stewart in the backfield, and you know which of them are you gonna stop? They were both tough running backs. Tony Baselli starting his Hall of Fame career. They beat Buffalo and the playoffs to move on to play the Broncos, and it was another big game for Brunel. You know, they put up four nine yards of offense against the Bills.

They sent Jim Kelly into retirement. It was his last game in the National Football League, and it was like the changing of the guard. Okay, here go. The Bills were used to them for a while, and now we're gonna wind up seeing the Jaguars. Maybe not this year because okay they're they're newbies, but they're in their second year of existence, but clearly they look like that and all this young talent to really become a dominant team in the a f C for a long time they

came together that fast. I mean, this is this is a year removed from not having any players. Here they are, you know, and they win, they make which made me think, what the hell are the Jets doing. I mean, this is a team that didn't have players and they're getting into the playoffs. Well that's to say, you go four and twelve the first year, and then you rally up to nine and seven, A fresh face, young Tom Coughlin

getting that like, he wasn't red in the face. Fully, he hadn't been wind burned because he was down in Jacksonville. It wasn't the chronic, you know, red face look that he had for so many years down the sideline for the Giants later on. But if you talk about young, right, because you've got a cool new logo, uh teal is you know, the uniform is just a different color than you're used to seeing, right, because it's darker than what

the Dolphins were using. And so yeah, you've got a little bit of merch rolling up and people buying in and just kind of curious to see what this franchise is gonna do. Some decent, you know, additions on the defensive side of things, but you know, again, just the curiosity and and you're a guy Rob Johnson in the mix. See how no matter where we go on special teams, he finds his way in. And Brunel was just so

much fun to watch play. I mean this, this is a guy that you thought was coming out of Washington was going to be a highly rated quarterback. But he gets hurt, loses the job as senior year to Billy Joe Hobert. But the Jacksonville Jaguars saying, okay, no, no, he's gonna be our guy. And slowly he comes through and look he through for four thousand yards. This year wasn't great touchdown interceptions, nineteen touchdowns and twenty picks, but he just had something about him. He had that in

factor in The whole team was just fun. It was you couldn't root against them. It was really hard to say, okay, even though Tom Coughlin was look, you know the drill Sergeanty was and and I'm sure it couldn't have been fun for a lot of the players, the young players coming in. But they were just a fun team. And

you don't get that that often in sports. It would, you know, everything about them was, hey, I really want to see him play and see him come together and become a dominant team, and you really thought it was gonna happen after this game against the Broncos. Yeah, I mean, just a lot of buy in when you got a guy that's given his body up and while we sit back, you know, and on our Fox Sports radio show and stare at each other, going, what the hell is that

guy doing? You gotta get down. You gotta learn that Peyton Manning turtle move, like those old little toys you had that had the button on the bottom and the legs would buckle and then you'd let it go and

he's brother there he is. Just bring back up. That's what you need to do as a quarterback, and you need to learn not to absorb hits, but by the same token, that's what endears you to your crowd and the local fans and to your teammates because they know you're giving up every inch to get over the top. Now and this year, what is absolutely amazing is he

also fumbled fourteen times. Yeah they only lost three of them. Yeah. Well, I always felt like he always had that big knee brace that took up most of his leg and still he's getting outside the pocket and getting away from people and making throws. I felt I feel like he had the knee brace on his entire career. You kept yelling run for us, run alright, sorry, too easy a joke. So this is where things sit. The ambush at Mile High was upon us. It was supposed to be a

route for the Broncos. It was anything. But how did it happen? And what happened to these teams following? Keep it right here? This is special teams with Jason Smith and Mike Armon. So Denver comes into this game as four team point favorites and it starts out like it's going to be a route. Denver scores two touchdowns in the first quarter. Vaughan hebron has a touchdown run on four down, the extra point gets blocked. Lay throws a touchdown to Shannon Sharp. They missed the two point conversion.

Jacksonville doesn't have a first down in the first quarter, and it was gonna be easy, all right, Well, it's all right, Well, obviously we're not gonna get drawn in this playoff game. It's twelve nothing. They missed the extra point, two point conversion, But this is it. The Jaguars are going nowhere against this Broncos team, which made the comeback all the more shocking because here's a young team that doesn't know anything on the road in the playoffs. You're down,

the crowd is loud, you're on the road. Okay, it's just not gonna work for us. We won our big game against the Bills. It would have been easy to quit and go home and say, hey, it was a great year and you know, another year of seasoning. We'll come back and try it again next year. What's curious is if you go back and watch the telecast, as you know, a nerd like me is want to do uh not often did you have the uh the score and down in distance and time that would disappear for

long stress like where are we at? What do we do? Who's paying attention? This is the days of the ten minute ticker, where getting the scores three ten minutes? Oh great, Oh we got the scores coming up soon. Yeah. And then finally, you know, it settles in towards the end of the first half where you see it a bit more. But it's like, all right, how do you run clock? Right? I mean, you got lway, you got all this potent offense to it, but how do you get the clock

to keep moving well? And this year Denver's defense was really good. You know that the era of the Broncos, we spent a lot of time talking about Elway and Terrell Davis obviously, but this Denver defense was terrific. There was nothing that was gonna tell you that the Jaguars are gonna be able to mount any sort of come back. And then the second quarter came and it was like they flipped a switch. The Jaguar score on three straight possessions.

The game completely changes an inverse from the first quarter. Jacksonville takes a thirteen twelve lead a halftime, and it turned into everything that Jaguars were you know, watching this game again. It's big plays from wide receivers, it's big runs by the running backs, it's choke yardage, and Jacksonville would wind up scoring on six straight possessions in this game.

And it was what just happened. It was a shock to everybody whoa we got a game here and at halftime, the Broncos going to the locker room going what the hell is going on? We were in control of this game and now we're losing at halftime. Yeah, it looks like you're gonna go runaway and hide and slows down. And when it's all said and done, the opportunities lost, right. I mean, you see the frustration start to mount because what started so easily isn't clicking. Now, this game turned

out to be. Instead of the birth of a superstar from Mark Brunel, it turned out to be this was his finest hour. He throws a touchdown past to McCardell in the third quarter and a touchdown past to Jimmy Smith. This after a thirty yards sideline to sideline run they still talk about in Jacksonville. Al Right, it was a big play to take them down to the twenty one yard line. The touchdown past gives Jacksonville a ten point

lead thirty to twenty. But this run where he starts off on one side of the field, comes all the way back to the other side. I mean, this was the defining play of the Jaguars of this season, of Mark Brunell's career. I mean, they had a ten point lead in the fourth quarter. Nobody knows how they got here, how they were able to suddenly run circles around the Broncos defense. Denver does come back to make it thirty seven. Elway throws a touchdown to Ed McCaffrey, but Jacksonville gets

the on side kick. They win a game. And I know still it was probably years later, and you have people walking around going, yeah, I get the Super Bowls. I understand how we but I don't understand how we lost that game to to the Jacksonville Jaguars. I don't understand what happened in the second and third quarter us how suddenly we couldn't stop them. I don't understand how Mark Brunell was able to do anything he wanted to do.

But really this was the apex, and what you thought was the beginning was really the top of this run by the Jaguars. Don't you try to just throw that one away. Everybody's allowed one of those in your history. You you're the Jets, you've got tons of them. I'm I'm a barrass fan tons, and I've certainly got thirty of those tons of top. Yeah. So if you're a Bronco fan, you just eight that never happened. No, that's no, no, dude, we didn't. We didn't play that year. What happened? Yeah, no, no,

we decided not to play. We took the year off and then won the Super Bowl the year after. That's what we did. I like, you know, Brunel. The thing is, this is really about him because he was now at this point the next great superstar quarterback in the NFL. He orchestrates this upset over the Broncos and and for all the Look, obviously quarterbacks are going to get more

attention than anybody else. And look, they had tremendous weapons around him, and that's something that you know, as we go on years and years, you wonder, boy, how did they not win with all these great weapons. But they always had a running back, whether it was you know, James Stewart and whether it was Natron Means, whether it was Fred Taylor, whoever it was. They had the wide receivers, they had Jimmy Smith, they had Keenan McCardell, they had weapons,

and this was really the biggest win. They've gone further in the playoffs and in subsequent years, which we're gonna get to, but this really this win. This was the biggest moment for the organization. And he was gonna be a big star, but twenty touchdowns was his high with Jacksonville. He didn't really run for a lot of yards and really turn into Steve you know, he was more like Steve Young light. He never really hit that next level.

He was kind of the same quarterback at the end of his career that he was at the beginning of his career. He never really took that that jump going Okay, now I'm learning what the defenses are giving me, and I'm gonna take a step here, take a step here, and now become that great, great quarterback. No, he kind of peeked early and he was good. But in the NFL, you're not really gonna take advantage of what you shoot in your career if you're the same player year two

that you are year eight and year nine. And that's kind of what Brunel was. No, he's he's a guy that I remember him getting a little bit of fantasy love for a couple of years off the al Right, he runs a bit, Right, that was the calling card and the wishing and hoping based on the players that were assembled there in right, I mean it was he sold a lot of a lot of hope when it came down to it, Right, you had the one big run up year and come back to two thousand five

as a member of Washington. But for the Jaguars, its just you can never curb the turnovers and and eliminate, you know, just the mistakes overall, right to get to that next level. Not to mention, you know, trying to be gaudy with your stats. That's not really something that jives with what Tom Coughlin wants to do either, and just call it and stylistically that's not his thing. To just open it up. So the Jaguars move on, and

we'll left more on them in a few minutes. But for the Broncos, they go home in a game that John Elway said was the most embarrassing of his career up until that point because they should have won the Super Bowl. And they should have, all right, this is a year in which we actually saw the Patriots advanced the Super Bowl and play the Packers. Had the Broncos won this game, they would have had the Patriots at home for the a f C Championship, which was Bledsoe

and Curtis Martin. Now, the Patriots were surprising, but they were kind of a weak number two. See even though ourselves was the coach and look at what he's doing here, Denver wins that game at home easy, and I think they would have beaten the Packers in the Super Bowl. The Patriots gave the Packers a much better game than anybody expected. Packers came in his favorites and how good

can the Patriots be? And without Desmond Howard's big return for a touchdown, the Packers might have lost this game. And so this should have been the first championship for the Broncos. And this is why we should be talking about them. Is the only NFL three Peters because this was the beginning of their incredible three year run thirteen and three, twelve and four fourteen into two super Bowls. I mean, this should have been it. I mean, this

was a lost Super Bowl for the Broncos. But watching this game and you you know, and and seeing this as we're going back for the podcast, it's like the Broncos played this entire game like what's happening? We were not really processing what's happening. We should be winning this game?

Why is this going on? One of those things where you you're kind of a deer in headlights, you don't really see how it's going on, and by the time you get your your bearings again, it's too late, and and and that's kind of how this game played out for the Broncos. They just couldn't stop the Jaguars at all. Like I said, six straight possessions and the Broncos go home when it should have been a Super Bowl year

for them. The Broncos came into this game with a game plan, but then when they got punched in the mouth, they had no way of coming back, Like, we're gonna impose our will on this game, and what's the old saying. Everybody's got a plan until they get punched them up. I don't think they thought they were gonna get punched in the mouth. We're not gonna this is the this

is the Jaguars. We're gonna win this game. And then when it happened, you know, you get lulled in to that sense of security after the first quarter they had, and then it gets to the second quarter and it's it's it's a it's an avalanche, and it just keeps coming. There's no way to stop it. You couldn't even adjust at halftime. I thought, you know, going in at halftime, all right, this is where the Broncos go, Okay, let's adjust. Well look what they did to us scoring those three

possessions in the second quarter. Nope, couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. And Mark Brunell did whatever the hell he wanted to in the second half. And that was the big stunning part. So why didn't the Jaguars turn into the team of the late nineties early two thousand's, Well, one word definitely is responsible for that. We have that coming up next Where are they now? And the rest of the short, but illustrious and an incredible career of

Terrell Davis. This is special teams with Jason Smith and Mike Armon before we get to the Jaguars and what happened to them against the Patriots and in subsequent years, you know, we spent a lot of time talking about John Elway and and yes, they wound up winning two Super Bowls and Terrell Davis was terrific and he was the guy that finally brought glory to Denver when Denver really ignored the running back position for the vast majority of Elway's career, but suddenly was oh, hey, look now

we got a running back and now we're winning. But after this year, Davis really only had two more years in the NFL. And that's it. You know, it's hard to believe he's a Hall of Famer because he he only had three fantastic years, one good one and that's it. He had a bad knee injury when he tried to make a tackle an interception against the Jets in the game in and that did it for him. I mean,

up until then, he was fantastic. The mile high salute, you know, the Y two k for him is he gonna get to two thousand yards and Terrell Davis was gonna be the it guy in the NFL. But that was you know, there's only really two more years. And because he was so good and they won two Super Bowls, they put him in the Hall of Fame. But boy, you're really stretching the limit of of how long does the guy have to play they get in the Hall of Fame in the National Football League. It's one that

still leaves me uneasy. As brilliant as those three seasons were, that that's enough to get you in, right, Not that you want to be a stat at a stats aggregator, right, because we've got some of those in the mix as well. Right where there's certainly, you know, the guys that are lifers, and you say, all right, they got to this giant pile of receptions or or yardage and and all of those things. But it's it's just a snapshot. And and I guess because he got way over that gets him in.

I mean, because it's dominance for a couple of seasons. But we've got a couple of guys that we'll have to have conversations about in coming years that were dominant for a half decade and their induction might be curiosities. Right, I don't know if the career by time folks listened to this down the line and it's living in the podcast world forever, whether Antonio Brown gets back on a football field. But six seven years about as good as you've seen as a receiver, chad Ocho sinko, Is he

getting one? Is he getting a bust to go along with that canton coat that he wore all those years ago? I mean, he was about as good as it was for a receiver for four or five years. But again, does he get lost to history because of the numbers, you know, whereas here you've gotta have flash for just three seasons, four good, three great, and he's in the Hall of fame. I don't begrudge him. I mean, he know me. It's a museum and you're celebrating the best.

So let's just build a bigger museum and get more busts in there, more tourism. I always say, but it's it's one of those great debates. Hundred yards and thirteen touchdowns in this year, hundred yards and fifteen touchdowns the next year, and then two thousand and eight and twenty one touchdowns. You look, it's it's hard you take any running back from the past twenty years ago. Okay, do you have three years like that? No, but it still is only three years. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's

still only three But you win this. Winning the Super Bowl sometimes does that. And he he was the guy that Broncos were so good for so long they could never win. But finally they get him and they win back to back Super Bowls. But I mean, by way of contrast, right, you look at saying going into Ezekiel Elliott's played four years in the league, forty touchdowns. He's already had three seasons with at least undred fifty rushing yards.

He's got forty eight touchdowns altogether, including a lot more prominent role in the passing game than Terrell Davis ever did. So he's at almost seven thousand total yards already, which is right about where Terrell Davis finished. I mean, just to put it in perspective, Look, it is like I said, Look, I was stunned when he got in. I was surprised. I didn't think that he deserved just because he didn't

play long enough. And and I remember we talked to Jason Cole, was Pro Football Hall of Fame voter, and he was like, you know, the conversation wasn't really that big a deal. It was like Terrell Day, Yeah, Terrell Davis is in. It's like wow. So it wasn't It didn't even sound like it was controversial. It was like, yeah, d D he's in, he's in, he's and he's in. I'm like, okay, greatness, he's stamp a man and let's go. So for the Jaguars, they were going big game hunting.

They returned back home and there were forty thousand fans greeting them at the airport after they beat the Denver Broncos again a game that nobody saw coming. So now they got New England in the A f C Championship Game. Could a team in their second year in existence go to the Super Bowl? But what killed them in this game killed them every time they got within a step of greatness. Turnovers killed them. Early on in the game, they had the high snap on a punt. Brian Barker

gets tackled at the four yard line. New England scores a touchdown. Chris Hudson fumbles a punt. New England gets a field goal. All right, Brunel gets picked in the end zone. James Stewart's fumbles its return for a touchdown. Brunel throws another pick, and the New England Patriots are going to the Super Bowl and the Jaguars are going home. But you think, okay, all right, it happens they were

a team. They the clock struck midnight for them. Look, they weren't supposed to beat the Broncos, but they did. But here comes their era of dominance. Well in ven they go eleven and five. Here they are, but they lose the rematch to Denver in Denver seventeen. Denver takes care of business on their way to the Super Bowl.

All right, but this begins their four year run of almost for the Jaguars, right, They lost the Jets in the playoffs and night they lost the a f C title game to Tennessee in nine nine the only team they lost to in nine they were fourteen and two. They lost the Titans three times. What were the common

themes in these games? Turnovers? Four turnovers against the Jets in ninety eight, including Key Shawn catching an interception on the final play of the game, when the Jaguars are throwing up a hell Mary six turnovers against Tennessee in the a f C title game in h that's true. Yes, hey, we're not nine in seven this year. We're gonna be great. But this is what this is what did the Jaguars in It wasn't that, oh we played a better team here,

a better team, but no turnovers crushed them. It killed them in the game against the Patriots for the a s C title game, killed them against the Jets, killed them against the Tennessee Titans three years later. Had you just stayed away from that, had you been able to hold on to the football, you probably win at least one of those games, and maybe it's a super Bowl for the Jaguars that you're talking about being the the ultimate for the organization. But instead it's this game, this win,

the ambush ap mile high. You look back and say, what's the greatest win in Jaguars history. This is the game you look back at. But you know, me, the devil always in the detail, the greatest predictor of wins and losses to some eight three percent in the National Football League. Hold on to the stinking ball. That's it. I mean, don't be errant and passing. And that's the other thing is is Brunell had an arm to get it down field, but he had a lollypop kind of

throw off in times. Yeah. Right, there was a lot of air because there were a number of you know, near misses. Going back and watching just clips of him as get ready for the podcast going, you know, reminding yourself of of all the little things of aret, why didn't they get over It's like, yeah, that that long wind up and delivery to the outside. Cornerbacks were licking their chops on occasion. You know that he just leave

one up a little too much. You know, they were a team of almost that you thought, it's shocking that they weren't any better. They didn't at least get to the Super Bowl. One's not they gotta win one or win two or be dominant. But boy, they seemed like they were. And they kept their big three together for a long time, and like I said, they segued into Fred Taylor, who was phenomenal pretty easy. You you look back and go, man, how did this team not win more? How?

How did they wind up shooting themselves in the foot the whole time? The the Jaguars were the era of never was. They were almost there and then they never were And and it doesn't make any sense. A lot of talent, a lot of stars and big names. And again you know, talking about Jimmy Smith and how he's oft forgotten in lists of receivers and you know, talent over the last twenty years. Fred Taylor's that guy too.

Write Oftentimes it's like, and by the way, don't forget fred Taylor would have been third on this Listen, Wait what it's like? Can you remember how good he was? But then you put the numbers behind it and it just one of those Sorry, don't forget about them just because they play in Jacksonville, because that's the norm now, right, it's just Jacksonville. Uh send him to London. Uh send him relocate them wherever. Whatever shot Collen wants to do, go,

they don't matter. I mean that's kind of the general attitude. Even if you have a minshumania for a while, it's still the all right, it's gonna become Jacksonville again. All Right, I'm a little where are they now coming off this game? Let's go defensive lineman Don Davy h He's part of a wealth management company. Disciplined equity is what it's called. That's pretty good. Well, you gotta be disciplined if you're

gonna make money. I want to name a horse. Disciplined Equity's gotta be sixteen letters, right, all right, I'll work on that. Work on that. See if you can shorten that, like it's a license plate. Mike Hollis uh doing someone Hemp based wellness products? Wow, okay, I liked help based well this' but hemp based is different. Well, you know, hemp based. You know one of those. You get the p h Lionel Washington, defense coordinator for the Southern Jaguars

after some coaching stints in the National Football Leagues. Mike Lowdish, sales manager for clover Dale Equipment, Construction, Equipment and Company. Uh, and then you got Reggie Rivers, the Galla Team author does a bunch of stuff helping nonprofits with fundraising strategies, kind of like you do on air. Sometimes you'll say, Hey, I've got a good strategy for this company, here, there, everywhere. That's what Reggie Rivers is doing in his post football career.

So there it is. The where are they Now? The ambush at Mile High, the big moment in the sun for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and a lost chance at the Broncos to be the first team to win three straight Super Bowls. Jason Smith and Mike Harmon. You can listen to our show on Fox Sports Radio Monday through Friday, ten pm to two am on the East Coast, seven to eleven on the West Coast. If you have an idea for a future Special Teams broadcast, Hey, let us know on Twitter at how about a Fresca. Mike is

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