The 2007 season was one of the best in franchise history for the Jacksonville Jaguars. It was the last time the team won 11 games, and the group stunned the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road in a cold January night game in the AFC Wild Card round.
The run ended in the Divisional Round against the New England Patriots, who were coming off a 16-0 regular season, the first and only team to do so since the expansion to 16 games. But one key member of that Jaguars team thinks the run ended too soon.
On an episode of The Volume Sports Network’s ‘Catching Fades with Aquib Talib,’ former Jacksonville running back Maurice Jones-Drew, who alongside Fred Taylor led an explosive Jaguars backfield, said that the 2007 squad should have gone to the Super Bowl.
An all-time underrated team..the 2007 Jacksonville Jaguars. pic.twitter.com/8yRW70Ed8n
— The Volume (@TheVolumeSports) February 24, 2021
“When I got to the National Football League [after success in college] and I’m in Jacksonville, it was 2007. We used to have, they called it a Rookie Tuesdays and it’d be at a rookie’s house,” Jones-Drew said. “Everyone would come over, we’d gamble, watch TV hang out, just have a good get-together. We tried to keep that tradition going after, but that 2007 team – we should have went to the Super Bowl. We should’ve won it all.”
The Patriots, who won the Divisional Round game 31-20, went on to play in Super Bowl XLII, which they lost to the New York Giants in what remains one of (if not the) biggest Super Bowl upsets in NFL history. But Jones-Drew said the Jaguars had what it took to beat that New England team.
“We were right there in New England, we had them beat. Right. One play away,” the former Jaguar said.
“But what I loved about it was [former defensive tackle] John Henderson opened a club. We’d always meet at the club on Sunday after the games. Right. We went 11-5 that year and beat Pittsburgh twice in Pittsburgh, but it was a family-type atmosphere.”
Jacksonville couldn’t replicate its success the following season. Quarterback David Garrard never developed into anything more than a competent passer, and the team fell to 5-11 in 2008. It didn’t finish above .500 (or make the playoffs) again until 2017.
“But what broke us apart was money, right. We needed guys to get paid. They didn’t get paid, they ended up paying guys from outside that ruined it, but that year was special,” Jones-Drew added.
“That 2007 team, like we had it and we just we just messed it up right at the end but it was a great time.”
Though fans can only look back at 2007 and wonder what could have been, they’ll hope that the new regime will get the team back on track sooner rather than later.