Gene Frenette: Jaguars would welcome more prime-time national exposure

Except for 10 “Thursday Night Football” appearances the last decade, including Thursday's 19-3 victory over the New York Jets, prime-time exposure for the Jaguars has been non-existent because their woeful record and small market has limited appeal for the television networks.

But with the Jaguars firmly in the AFC South title chase, there remains a slight possibility their Week 18 rematch against the Tennessee Titans at TIAA Bank Field could be flexed into the Saturday, Jan. 7, time slots of 4:30 p.m. or 8:15 p.m. if it’s a winner-take-all game for the division crown.

As for the most coveted TV spot on “Sunday Night Football,” which has been a Jaguars-free zone since 2008 when they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers 26-21 at TIAA Bank Field, that’s a tougher landing spot.

Gene's previous columns:

It is their destiny:Believe it or not, Jaguars looking like team of playoff destiny

Late-season surge:Never-say-die Jaguars set aim at Jets, playoffs after upsetting Cowboys

The belief is if the Cincinnati Bengals-Baltimore Ravens game decides the AFC North title or quarterback Tom Brady has a playoff berth riding on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ last game with the Atlanta Falcons, those matchups would be considered more desirable for NBC. The NFL won’t reveal the Week 18 schedule until the Week 17 results are in.

But for an attention-starved Jaguars franchise, how great would it be if that season finale against Tennessee was a stand-alone game with all the nation’s NFL eyeballs fixed on Jacksonville?

No Jaguars player knows more about being in the national television spotlight than receiver Marvin Jones, whose teams in Cincinnati and Detroit made nine appearances each on “Sunday Night Football” and “Monday Night Football” from 2011-19. The Jaguars’ last appearance in either game was Dec. 5, 2011, when they lost 38-14 at home on MNF to the then San Diego Chargers and quarterback Philip Rivers.

Jones would love the opportunity to get back on a weekend prime-time stage against the Titans in two weeks.

“It’d be amazing, just the atmosphere and the buzz around it,” said Jones. “It’d be great for a lot of guys in this locker room to experience. You’re under the lights and everybody’s watching. That’s when people make names for themselves. That’s when the competition definitely rises up because there’s a spark to it.

“When you’re playing football, you want to be in those games. It’s great to put yourself and the team on display.”

Outside linebacker Josh Allen would welcome national television exposure for the Titans game, but is just as interested in experiencing the TIAA Bank Field atmosphere.

“Hopefully, it would be packed with our people,” Allen said. “That’d be pretty cool to get a crowd full of Jaguars fans.”

That was a reference to Dallas Cowboys fans occupying what appeared to be half the stadium in their 40-34 overtime loss last week. Jaguars’ fans wanting to see their team getting national exposure in prime-time against Tennessee for the AFC South title should probably root for the Bengals and Brady’s Buccaneers to clinch their respective division titles before Week 18.

If the NFL decides the Jaguars-Titans game isn’t worthy of a big television stage, and the only prime-time exposure they get in 2022 is once again a lone appearance on “Thursday Night Football,” stay tuned for 2023 because that is likely to change.

With quarterback Trevor Lawrence emerging as a bona fide star, the Jaguars won’t have to worry much longer about getting only minimal prime-time exposure.

Napier shouldn’t get free pass 

Nobody can really dispute the low stakes for Florida in last week’s 30-3 loss to Oregon State at the Las Vegas Bowl, where the absences of quarterback Anthony Richardson and guard O’Cyrus Torrence due to opting out for the NFL Draft diminished the potency of UF’s offense.

Game circumstances aside, it was still a bad look for the Gators (6-7), who routinely rush for over 200 yards a game, to put up the embarrassing total of 39 yards on 33 attempts. Florida had only four carries of 5-plus yards, three by replacement QB Jack Miller.

Yes, Oregon State had the second-best defense in the Pac-12 in scoring and total yards allowed, but this anemic display can’t be totally dismissed simply because first-year coach Billy Napier is looking more to the future than the present.

Signing talented players and maintaining a top-10 recruiting class matters for 2023 and beyond, but so does performance when putting your brand on national TV. There’s no excuse for how ill-prepared the Gators looked. Napier has to do better in that department.

Groundhog Day for UF hoops

It’s hard to imagine how unwatchable Florida’s basketball team would be this season if first-year coach Todd Golden hadn’t convinced center Colin Castleton, who accounts for 20.7 percent of its scoring and rebounding, to stay in school one more year. The Gators’ 62-53 loss to Oklahoma this week was a microcosm of their entire non-conference season: win games in which UF (7-5) is a heavy favorite and go into an offensive coma at some point against a top-50 opponent in the NET rankings, where it has lost all five games by an average margin of 13.6 points.

Golden needs more time to get the program rolling. But for now, the Gators look no different than last year under the maligned Mike White.

MLB’s new villain

Remember back in the late 1970s and early 80s when New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was called out by critics, many of them Mets fans, for “buying a pennant” by spending gobs of money on star players?

Well, even accounting for inflation, the spending spree Mets owner Steve Cohen went on to land Justin Verlander, Carlos Correa and Kodai Senga for a combined $475 million worth of contracts makes George almost look like a penny pincher.

If it was Cohen’s goal to make himself and the Mets baseball’s biggest villains by having a total disregard for the luxury tax — not to mention the Correa 11th-hour signing overshadowing the Aaron Judge press conference to prop up him re-signing with the Yankees — then mission accomplished.

Now should the Mets make another early postseason exit, then Cohen will deserve all the pushback as MLB’s new poster boy of excess and greed.

Quick-hitting nuggets 

Totally lost in the euphoria of Rayshawn Jenkins’ historic overtime pick-6 for the Jaguars against the Cowboys: the only reason Dak Prescott was throwing the ball on third-and-4 is because Jenkins on the previous play stopped running back Tony Pollard for no gain. With apologies to Tony Brackens, Rashean Mathis and Calais Campbell, that 18-tackle, two-interception game by Jenkins gets my vote as the greatest defensive performance in team history. Incidentally, Prescott was the only player with a chance to bring Jenkins down on that TD return, but he got blocked to the ground by linebacker Foye Oluokun.

Can NFL commissioner Roger Goodell please convince the Competition Committee and owners to revisit the rule, which came into existence in 2006, that allows players to push the pile to get extra yardage for teammates possessing the ball? It goes against what football should be about. The NFL should change the rule so that officials blow a play dead instantly any time a ball-carrier receives any kind of push from a teammate.

How sad that Franco Harris, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Hall of Fame running back who made history with the Immaculate Reception, died just two days before that iconic play’s 50th anniversary and as the Steelers were set to retire his number 32 on Saturday. Harris, 72, was a rookie when he ran into immortality by grabbing a Terry Bradshaw deflected pass and scoring the game-winning touchdown in a 13-7 AFC wild-card win over the then Oakland Raiders. Among the 362 Hall of Famers, you could argue Harris belongs in the top-10 in terms of popularity.

I’m going on a post-Christmas vacation and this column won’t appear until the Jaguars travel to Houston next week for their matchup against the Texans.

Pigskin forecast 

Houston Texans over Tennessee Titans by 3 (“Duuu-val” chants); Miami Dolphins over Green Bay Packers by 3 (playoff reservations); Florida State over Oklahoma by 7 (top-10 ranking pleas); Duke over UCF by 1 (jump-ball catch); South Carolina over Notre Dame by 1 (stable quarterback); Clemson over Tennessee by 7 (better QB pinch-hitters); Michigan over TCU by 4 (Jim Harbaugh-to-NFL narratives); Ohio State over Georgia by 3 (C.J. Stroud redemption moments). Last week: 6 right, 1 Jakobi Meyers backward pass.

Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540 

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Titans at Jaguars could get prime-time slot in final week of season