by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
A long road for the Jacksonville Jaguars starts this weekend. The team has three straight games away from Alltel Stadium and, by the time they again reach the comfort of their home field, will have traveled more than 7,000 miles.
They also will have run the dangers, as Coach Jack Del Rio says, “of sleeping in lumpy beds and eating cold grits.”
The latter is a bit of a stretch, of course. For instance, the team will stay in the Phoenix Ritz-Carlton next week where there are certainly no lumpy beds, and probably won’t be any grits either.
“It’s weird to play three straight on the road,” said defensive end Reggie Hayward. “It’s like you’re on a basketball team, taking a West Coast trip.”
The oddity of the National Football League schedule — only Tampa Bay and Minnesota will also have three straight away games this year — puts the 6-3 Jaguars on a long road starting with a trip to Nashville this Sunday to play the 2-7 Tennessee Titans. Then they’re on to Phoenix to play the 2-7 Arizona Cardinals and finally to Cleveland for a match with the 3-6 Browns.
“I don’t think I’ve ever played three straight road games at any level,” said defensive back Terry Cousins. “It’s awkward.”
Wide receiver Reggie Williams did it once in college.
“We played our last two regular season games on the road and then a bowl,” said Williams. “Does that count?”
Wide receiver Jimmy Smith has done it three times, all with the Jaguars, when they played three straight road games in the 1996 playoffs and the 1997 and 2001 regular seasons.
“You have to concentrate on the game ahead of you,” said Smith. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
The burden, points out quarterback Byron Leftwich, falls on the support staff.
“They have to load up all the equipment, get it on the plane, haul it around another city, get it all back to Jacksonville and then do it all over again,” he said.
In addition to the specter of bad beds and cold food, Del Rio says there’s the challenge of being in enemy territory for an extended period.
“You don’t have your own comfort zone,” said Del Rio. “There’s a reason that home teams win more often— the change in stadiums, jet lag, fans, all that. Those are things that you face on any road trip, and we have to do it three straight times.”
The long rainbow of this trip has potential pots of gold awaiting, of course. All three opponents are down and almost out, and the Jaguars appear to be rolling after consecutive home victories.
If they can get through the trip, the luxury of home awaits where they play three of their final four games with the only trip to 1-8 Houston.
The remaining home schedule starts with a difficult match against 8-0 Indianapolis on Dec. 11 but then tails off against two of much lesser ability, 2-7 San Francisco on Dec. 18 and Tennessee on Jan. 1.
“We need to think about Tennessee,” said rookie running back Alvin Pearman, another who never has played three straight on the road. “Then we move to Arizona. I know the schedule sets up for us but we better not think ahead, or worry about the travel.”