The Boys of Fall

 

As I write this here in sunny (and frequently stormy) Jacksonville, Florida, our beloved Jaguars are conducting their first day of practice in full pads. That's right--our players are out there thumping again. The summer seems to have flown by, and another NFL season is right around the corner. It's hard to imagine that the Jags have a game next weekend, but here we are.

I'm bullish on this squad.

After last year's late-season collapse, I give general manger Trent Baalke and head coach Doug Pederson a lot of credit in overhauling this roster. Arik Armstead looks to be a strong veteran presence on an emerging defensive line. If Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker continue to make strides and DaVon Hamilton is fully recovered from his back injury then I think the Jags will have a formidable defensive front this fall.

The wide receiving corps, with the additions of Gabe Davis and Brian Thomas, Jr., in particular, should provide some downfield options for Trevor Lawrence that will help free things up underneath for Evan Engram and Christian Kirk. 

Travis Etienne is poised to take even another step this year as our lead running back, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Tank Bigsby will be much improved as his back-up.

Tyson Campbell, fresh on the heels of a new contract, and Ronald Darby should be fine in the secondary, and I think the addition of rookie Jarrian Jones is huge for this team. I expect Jones to get a lot of time on the field right from the jump, and Andre Cisco, Antonio Johnson, and Darnell Savage are all quality safeties. 

This team has more quality depth than I can ever remember in all of my time in Jacksonville, and we'll need it in a suddenly very competitive AFC South.

But it all falls on the shoulders of Trevor Lawrence. Early reports from training camp indicate that he's been having trouble connecting with his new receivers. He's thrown multiple interceptions in multiple practices, which is certainly not the news you want to hear on a player that just signed one of the richest contracts in professional sports.

But I have every confidence in Trevor and I really endorse the signing. He's an intelligent, charismatic, confident leader and just the right player to have as the face of the franchise and our city. His athletic gifts are undeniable, and his teammates love playing with him. Everything seems to be in place for a bounce-back for Trevor if our offensive line can give him some time and he can avoid the injuries that so clearly limited his performance in the back half of last year.

It's time to go! We have an NFL game this Thursday, and I've never been more excited about the year ahead for the Jacksonville Jaguars...

February Reviews: Gray Mountain, John Grisham

 

I enjoy John Grisham's books very much and I usually knock out a couple per year. I have read three so far in 2024, and his writing is clean, active, and very fluid. He is an excellent plotter and--for the most part--his characterization is keen and compels the reader into a sympathetic investment with the story.

Samantha Kofer is our protagonist in this legal thriller. She is one of the faceless minions in a large New York legal firm charged primarily with reading and revising huge, opaque real estate contracts. The Great Recession looms large in the opening passages of this story, however, and Kofer finds herself out on the street with few options as the firm cuts staff. Her only option is to take a free internship with a non-profit agency of firecracker lawyers in rural Appalachia. Their task? Securing settlements and benefits from big coal for the downtrodden, unskilled workers that toil in the mines under the specter of the dreaded black lung disease.

This book surges forward and Grisham's attention to detail on the ins and outs of the coal industry is admirable. As is the case with most of his books, the research is thorough and the legal tactics employed by big coal are both crushing and draconian. It's sad, really, so read about these small towns whose citizens have been used up and left for dead. Some of the miners have only worked in the mines for a few years before they develop the incurable disease, and that part of the story is heart-breaking.

While critics generally enjoyed the book, I found it a little light overall and thought that the tale needed a bit more exposition and some additional space to really breathe. As Kofer unravels the thread of a major lawsuit against a particularly aggressive mining company and their strong-arm tactics to level mountains and poison the groundwater, death, covert intimidation, and general mayhem ensue. It's interesting enough, to be sure, but the story feels rushed and the conclusion is short and a bit unsatisfying. It shares a kinship with the movie A Civil Action in the sense that there is no real hope for meaningful reform. The big take-away is that these large companies are above the law, and the human capital in rural America will be exhausted without any meaningful recourse.

This is a page-turner and an interesting read that most audiences will enjoy, but it lacks the moral gravitas of many of his better novels (I have read A Time to Kill three times, and still find it one of the best American novels of the last half century). I recommend it, but it's not in the same category as much of Grisham's production, and the other pair of books I have read by this wordsmith in the new year...

January Reviews: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, by George R.R. Martin

 

I continued my January reading with George R.R. Martin's excellent collection of three novellas, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. These longish tales follow a humble hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall after the young squire loses his own knight, Arlan, on the road to a tournament. Duncan (Dunk) is leal (loyal), noble, and freakishly strong. He stands close to seven feet in height, and Gary Gianni's excellent pencil illustrations bring him to life with stunning aplomb in this tome. 

Dunk is ambitious. He is poor, but he aspires to such much more and really only wants some stability in his life. When he stumbles upon a young bald boy bathing in a creek, his future takes a new path as the boy takes an instant liking to Dunk and schemes to become his new squire.

The dynamic between Dunk and Egg (so named for his bald pate) early on is endearing, as Dunk doesn't want a squire and thinks the boy will only slow him down. But Egg is tenacious and hard-working, and before too long the pair become inseparable.

I won't get into too many of the plot dynamics, but Egg is so much more than a humble squire. He is descended from royal blood, and he has an acid tongue, a strong personality, and a full grasp of the turmoil that has rippled through the Seven Kingdoms over the last two decades.

The three novels are consistently well-written, with separate, interconnected adventures. Poor Dunk has a knack for finding himself in tough spots, but his honorable demeanor and thick frame suit him well as he navigates the vagaries of a dangerous world.

Martin's characterization is excellent, and Dunk and Egg are drawn with meticulous care. Dunk's consistent laments that he isn't good enough to claim the honor of calling himself a knight can be tedious at times, but it serves the story well as he ingratiates himself to the various forces to which he aligns himself. 

There is a complex dilemma at the heart of these stories (and one that I won't divulge here), but Dunk and Egg are just a few of the figures in these stories whose hearts are in the right place. It's a very satisfying trio of tales, and I hope that Martin revisits their adventures in future stories. They are certainly worth being told...

January Reviews: Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin

 

Two or three years ago, I mowed through the six current books in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire saga. That's a figurative embodied metaphor, of course, because I can mow my own lawn here at the house in thirty minutes and reading those amazing books took me the best part of a full year. It was like going to Westeros boot camp, and I was a lowly hedge knight for three hours every evening, eager to lend my sword to any liege lorad with mutton and mead.

It was exhilarating, and I looked forward to those reading sessions all throughout the day.

Martin's stories are told from multiple points of view, allowing the readers all kinds of insights into these lively, round characters. Even though I was reading at the same time that HBO was releasing new episodes of their televisual adaptation (also appointment viewing for us), it was such an enhancement to read those books while seeing the characters on the small screen.

Martin is a wordsmith, a master plotter (I thought we'd never see another writer that could build worlds as adeptly as Tolkien, but perhaps even the great master of the fantasy genre would be impressed with the depth and detail in these tomes...), and a perceptive student of the human condition. He really understands conflict (some of these books will make you wince and squirm and feel a flush of love and joy in a single sitting), and he writes with an active, engaging voice. His understanding of language is impressive, with so many antiquated terms and phrases peppering the writing with great ease.

I loved these books, and Fire & Blood is every bit their equal. In some ways, it exceeds them in its focus on familial history and the broader scope of governance and struggle in the Seven Kingdoms. 

Told in the form of a maester's textbook, the writing is humorous, pointed, and fluid. The work covers long centuries of triumph, tragedy, and conquest before the Ice and Fire books. It's spicy, with lots of sex and romance (if you can call it that) subplots, and there are dozens of dragons in this book. The tale of the Greens and the Blacks, which forms the foundation for HBO's spinoff equally excellent House of the Dragon, is simultaneously heart-breaking and revolting, as these characters stoop to the very depths of treachery in their lust for the Iron Throne. The violence is not for the faint of heart, but it never feels gratuitous or indulgent. It merely serves the narrative arch that sitting atop the Iron Throne and ruling the Seven Kingdoms is Westeros's finest drug--a narcotic so powerful that it causes men, women, and children alike to cast aside any façade of human decency in its pursuit.

This is one of the best books I've read in the last year or so, and I most highly recommend it to those that love the venerable fantasy genre... 

It Was Always the Jaguars!

 

Trevor Lawrance on the run, via the New York Post

Well, that was one the most remarkable seasons that I can remember in all of my years of watching sports. It's taken a few days to process everything that happened this year after that loss to the Chiefs, but we sure had a wild ride out here in Duval County this year.

These Jacksonville Jaguars were a revelation, and the future of this franchise looks very bright. The Jags were in just about every game this season, only suffering a single blow-out to the Detroit Lions, and they illustrated a unified, cohesive, and skilled approach to the game in winning both the AFC South Division and a playoff game over the L.A. Chargers.

Doug Pederson's influences on this young team were immediate and profound. After the clown-show that was Urban Meyer's brief tenure here in Jacksonville (he literally didn't know our players' names and couldn't talk about their status in pre or post-game interviews, and ignorance was the least of his transgressions...), Pederson (we all just call him 'Doug') proved to be motivational, even-keeled, and innovative. I've never seen a coach scheme guys open the way that Doug does. He calls the offensive plays, and our wideouts, backs, and tight ends are consistently open. He coaches with aggressive instincts. I've never seen a team go for it this much on fourth down, but he never becomes a prisoner of the moment. He assesses things, crunches the numbers, and he seems bound by his convictions. He coached one of the most masterful games I've ever seen in my life in that comeback win over the Chargers in the first week of the playoffs and is one of the finest coaches in the league.

Doug is the AFC Coach of the Year, and the award is well-deserved.

The defense showed steady improvement over the course of the year, playing its best football throughout that amazing winning streak we finished the year on. There are some huge financial decisions to make in the offseason, but the future looks bright. Travan Walker flashed (he had a pick and a sack in his first game) some dominating skills and Devin Lloyd won the AFC defensive rookie of the month award to begin his career with JAX. He hit a lull midway through the year, often getting burned in coverage, but finished the season on a much better note. I expect that he will have a really positive offseason and come back ready to start and dominate in 2023/24. He is the answer to guys like Kelce once he gets a better feel for the NFL game, because his athleticism is off the charts. 

Foye Aluokun was last year's best free-agent signing, and the future looks bright for the defense with him as the captain and the defensive maestro. A Yale graduate, he does a good job of setting the defense and putting his teammates in position to make plays. He's a tackling machine that should have been awarded Pro-bowl status, at the very least. I hope defensive coordinator continues to find ways to get Foye into blitzes, because he can go get that quarterback down on the ground just as well as he flies to the football.

Tyson Campbell, Rayshawn Jenkins (our second-half defensive MVP), Andre Cisco, and Darious Williams form the core of a fine secondary. Jenkins is an unrestricted free agent and will garner much interest on the open market. I don't know that he'll be back in Jacksonville next year, but I certainly hope they can find a way to make it happen.

The Jaguars offense was led, of course, by Trevor Lawrence. His maturation in his second season was astounding, and it's pretty clear we've never had a quarterback of this skill level (and we all love you dearly, Mark, Blake, and David!) here in Jacksonville. He threw for more than a thousand yards, distributing the ball in a remarkable balanced fashion to a wideout corps that led the NFL with forty-one drops. Just think of how many more yards he might have if that number is cut in half? That's twenty more completions right there...he is mobile, instinctive (he improvised that two-point conversion in the win over the Chargers in the playoffs), and has a cannon for an arm. He makes throws that only a few others in the league can make, and we're talking the likes of Allen and Mahomes. Lawrence is a superstar, and he just gets it. He's embraced Jacksonville, and I truly think this team will be competitive (and maybe dominant, if Trent Baalke can surround him with some transcendent young talent via the NFL draft) as long as he is at the helm of this offense. We are blessed to have him, for many reasons beyond his prowess on the field...

Travis Etienne went over a 1,000 yards rushing for the first time in his career. He is a homerun back with surprising grit between the tackles. He also catches that little flair screen and gets north/south quickly. He needs to work on ball security and pass-blocking, but I sense that he will come into his own as one of the top eight backs in the NFL as soon as next season. His future is very bright, and I hope we can get JaMycal Hasty extended to continue in his complementary role this offseason. I've read some pundits calling for another back for the room, but I think Snoop Conner can continue to grow into that role as a thumper and we are good at that position for the near future.

Let me say this without qualification: I love Christian Kirk. He is a pro's pro, an engaging, smart young man, and a fast, talented wideout. He had two glaring drops that I can recall off the top of my head (both against KC, and one in each game), but he also made at least ten remarkably difficult, hotly contested catches. He gets credit for those of course, and none was bigger than that catch at the boundary against L.A. in the playoffs. When Calvin Ridley lines up on the opposite side, he'll have even greater opportunity and I expect that he will eclipse this year's fine season next year with some help taking the pressure off of him. 

Zay Jones was awesome as well. Despite a bad game at midseason (he was clearly playing injured), he made contested catches, ran away from defenses, and converted loads of third downs. Ridley, Zay, Christian, and Ags (Jamal Agnew) comprise a formidable wideout corps. Marvin Jones, Jr. possesses some of the best body control I've ever seen and has been a steadying, consistent presence on the team. I'm not sure if he will come back on a cheaper contract next year, but I hope we can find a way to keep him and maybe draft a developmental prospect in the second or third rounds of this year's draft.

Evan Engram is a force, and his play improved on a weekly basis. A true stretch tight end, he is fast, tough, and plays with a chip on his shoulder. Doug schemed him open a lot, and he had a few huge games late in the year. He wants to be here, but he will be expensive. That said, we need to sign him up. He's young, hungry, and has a great rapport with Trevor.

The previously mentioned Agnew was also consistently amazing. He is a weapon returning punts and kicks, and he made a ton of plays on offense. This is his second excellent year in Duval, and he is deserving of a new contract.

Roy Robertson-Harris, Agnew, Engram, Jenkins, Adam Gotsis, Arden Key, Jawaan Taylor, Andrew Wingard, Dawaune Smoot, and kicker Riley Patterson are the most critically important free agents I'd like to see back. Smoot tore his Achilles tendon and I really feel for him, because he has been a consistently solid performer throughout his tenure as a Jaguar. I hope we can bring all of them back, but that is probably asking quite a lot. We need to take care of another batch of rookies, and Doug and Baalke will be working together to scour free agency in the offseason.

That said, the core of this team is talented and impressive. I see more AFC South titles in the near future (the other three teams are all rebuilding, each has QB issues...), and I think Trevor has every tool necessary to mix it up competitively with the likes of Mahomes, Allen, Burrow, and Herbert over the next half-decade.

It was an exhilarating year that culminated with a seven-game win streak, another banner for TIAA Field, and a couple of worthy off-season honors from the NFL. This team will be on prime time next year more frequently, and they will be heavy favorites to repeat as divisional champions.

In short, the future is bright and the foundation has been set. We look young, skilled, and hungry, and in the space of one short season this team has proven its resiliency in a way that none of us--even the most die-hard among us--ever saw coming. 

It was always the Jaguars, my friends, and the positivity surrounding this team is well-deserved and refreshing after a few truly dreadful years of football.

Say it with me: DUUUUUUUUUUUUVAL!

The Powell Family Attends the Jags' Win over Tennessee

Interesting Articles on Communication Theory...

 Happy New Year! This post is meant merely as a repository for some of the more interesting articles on communication theory that I've looked at in the last few years. If anyone reading this is interested in how we connect with one another in a rapidly changing information ecosystem, this list should include some interesting food for thought...

• "Like. Flirt. Ghost: A Journey into the Social Media Lives of Teens." Mary H.K. Choi, writing for Wired
• "Is Cancel Culture Effective?" Nicole Dudenhoefer, writing for Pegasus
• "Who or Whom? One weird trick melts away YEARS of confusion." Amanda Darrach, writing for Columbia Journalism Review
• "I Didn't Want It to Be True, but the Medium Really Is the Message." Ezra Klein, writing for The New York Times
• "Stories From Experts About the Impacts of Digital Life." Pew Research Center

Just a few enticing epistemes, and I hope to add at least a dozen more in 2023.

A Few Odds and Ends as We Shamble Into 2022...

Well, it's been a few months since I dropped by these digital digs and turned the sign around on the front door. As I type this, it's cold and dreary here in Jacksonville. We've had a chilly foray into the new year here in Northeast Florida, and I can't say that I haven't enjoyed getting some cooler air here in Duval County.

It's just lovely running the local trails in shorts and a sweatshirt.

The kids are heading into the second half of the year with good momentum. We all enjoyed some restful and restorative vacations together to Oregon (Thanksgiving) and Washington (Christmas) in the fall. These were our first flights since the beginning of the pandemic, and they were surreal, to say the least. We missed our connection between Atlanta and Jacksonville on the trip home from Washington, and we endured the longest lines I've ever seen for TSA screening. We waited well over an hour to get screened, and the labyrinth was probably a mile long if one could stretch it out.

We enjoyed time with family and friends, though, and we saw some beautiful country and played in the snow. We sledded, went wine tasting, had some really fine meals, played golf, went to the Market in Seattle, and enjoyed a fine turkey dinner at my sister's house in Athena. All in all, the kids loved seeing their cousins, and my daughter has an affinity for travel that she was happy to satisfy with a few long flights. 

We will maybe take another longish trip later in the year, only this one will be just the four of us. We're talking about a trip to the Capital to see the historical sites, or maybe a little jaunt out to Yellowstone in the late summer. Not sure quite yet, but I'm excited at the possibilities.

Down in the Sawgrass Boneyard has been doing fairly well, and I've enjoyed getting started on a new novel and also working on some short stories. I have a few classes that I'm teaching online at present, and then I'll get back into a regular schedule when my contract resumes in the summer. 

Jeanne is doing well in her work at Fletcher, and the kids have enjoyed their experiences in school out at the beach. At some point, we will likely have to look pretty closely at making a move to the beach as the kids immerse themselves in clubs and sports. Lyla is running track, and I'll be coaching Luke's soccer team starting in March.

I just finished re-reading Stephen King's The Bazaar of Bad Dreams and really enjoyed it. Highlights include "The Dune," "Blockade Billy," "That Bus is Another World," and "Summer Thunder." That last tale leaves a pretty good bruise, and I think I'd like to try my hand at something in a similar vein very soon. I enjoyed Jane Campion's truly excellent The Power of the Dog. I think Archive 81 is some of the most tension-filled episodic television that I've seen in a good long while, and 1883 is more than a worthy prequel to the fine show Yellowstone. 

I hope this note finds you hale and hearty wherever you may read it. Keep your wits about you and your eyes on the horizon. Things will continue to improve, even if it doesn't always seem like it...