Tag: Mark Brunell

Lions QB coach Mark Brunell will present Tony Boselli to the Pro Football Hall of Fame

Brunell and Boselli were teammates in Jacksonville from 1995-2001 and had a lot of success together

No players with any Detroit Lions ties are being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2022, but there will be some Lions representation at the ceremony in Canton, Ohio this summer. Lions quarterbacks coach Mark Brunell will have the honor of presenting offensive tackle Tony Boselli to the crowd and the Hall of Fame.

Brunell and Boselli played together for the Jacksonville Jaguars from 1995-2001. Boselli protected Brunell’s blindside as one of the best left tackles in league history. The duo led the expansion Jaguars to the postseason in four straight seasons beginning in 1996, a season where Brunell led the NFL in passing yardage.

It’s a nice honor for Brunell, who just finished his first season as the Lions’ QB coach.

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Mark Brunell will be the presenter for Tony Boselli during Hall of Fame induction

Boselli protected Brunell from 1995-2001 and their bond has lasted well past their time in the NFL.

This preseason is going to be a big one for the Jacksonville Jaguars organization as they will be finally sending a player into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Tony Boselli. Jags fans were informed of the news three weeks ago during the NFL Honors show on Feb. 10 after Boselli’s patient wait came to an end.

Now, with his trip to Canton already set up, Boselli also announced who he’s chosen to be his presenter for the induction ceremony, and it’s a former teammate of his who Jags fans are well aware of. That former player’s name is Mark Brunell, the quarterback Boselli protected from 1995-2001.

Boselli broke the news that his long time friend would be the presenter on 1010XL sports radio Monday morning on “The Drill” with Dan Hicken and Jeff Prosser.

Brunell, 51, is now entering his second season as the Detroit Lions’ quarterbacks coach under Dan Campbell. Before joining them, he also coached on the high school level and served as the head coach for Episcopal School of Jacksonville for eight seasons.

However, before becoming a coach, Brunell was a quarterback in the NFL for 17 seasons. Nine of them were with the Jaguar, and seven of those nine seasons involved Boselli protecting Brunell after the former Southern California Trojan was the Jags’ first-ever draft pick in the 1995 NFL Draft.

While with the Jags, Brunell started in 117 games and completed 60.4% of his passes (2,184-of-3,616) for 25,698 yards and 144 touchdowns. He also started in 117 games while acquiring a 63-54 record in Duval.

As for Boselli, he earned three All-Pro selections (1997-99) and five Pro Bowl (1996-2000) selections while with the Jags. That was good enough to get him in the Jags version of the Hall of Fame entitled the “Pride of the Jaguars” in 2006, but the NFL finally gave him the respect he deserves this offseason, and he’ll now be immortalized in the football community.

There was already a great deal of excitement surrounding the Jags between Boselli’s induction into the Hall of Fame and the Jags naming Doug Pederson its head coach. However, the news of Brunel adds to it as well as the news that recently broke about the Jags participating in the Hall of Fame Game.

Mark Brunell says he can identify with Jared Goff after trade to the Lions

The new Lions quarterback coach knows a thing or two about being traded early in your career by the team that drafted you.

Former Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Mark Brunell, who took the team to AFC Championship appearances in 1996 and 1999, was hired by the Detroit Lions and new coach Dan Campbell to be their quarterback coach on Jan. 28. The position is in influx after more than a decade of stability with Matthew Stafford under center in the Motor City.

Stafford, who is 33, was recently traded to the Los Angeles Rams (though that trade hasn’t officially gone through yet). In exchange, the Lions received Jared Goff, who is 26 and heading into his sixth season in the league. Goff had a strong start to his career and took the Rams to Super Bowl LIII. But he has regressed a bit the last two seasons, and L.A. decided to move on.

Goff will hope for a career resurgence in Detroit under Brunell, who can relate to being traded early in his career. He was a fifth-round pick in 1993, appearing in a handful of games behind Brett Favre before he was moved to Jacksonville, where he became a starter.

“What I hope resonates with the quarterbacks I get to coach is the fact that I’ve been in their shoes,” Brunell said. “I was a late-round draft pick, a backup for really half my career. I’ve been in a supporting role. I was a starter for a long time, been to the Pro Bowl, on a Super Bowl team, led the league in passing, so I had some really cool moments. I was the guy in Jacksonville for a long time.

“But where I think this will really hit home for these guys is that listen, I’ve been traded, I’ve been cut, I’ve been benched, I’ve been booed, I’ve been told, ‘you’re just not what we want,’ I’ve been kicked to the curb. I’ve gone through just about anything an NFL quarterback can go through.

“So sure, I can identify with Jared Goff, or whoever is our starter, but I can also identify with the kid who’s just new to the building, who’s young and nobody really expects to even make a team. I’ve been that guy, too. I think players can respect that. I hope they can at least.”

Goff can only hope he does as well with his second chance as Brunell did when he turned a struggling startup franchise into an immediate competitor.

Updating the new Detroit Lions coaching staff

The staff is loaded with former NFL players

A flurry of recent hirings has nearly completed the Detroit Lions coaching staff built around new head coach Dan Campbell.

With Friday’s official additions that includes QB coach Mark Brunell, the Lions staff is getting fleshed out. There has been a decided emphasis in hiring former NFL players across the staff.

As of Friday, January 29th, here is what the Lions coaching staff officially looks like:

Head coach – Dan Campbell

Offense

Offensive coordinator – Anthony Lynn

QB coach – Mark Brunell

RB coach – Duce Staley, who is also the assistant head coach

WR coach – Robert Prince*

TE coach – Ben Johnson*

OL coach – Hank Fraley*

Offensive assistant – Tanner Engstrand*

Defense

Defensive coordinator – Aaron Glenn

Passing game coordinator/DB coach – Aubrey Pleasant

Inside LB coach – Mark DeLeone

Defensive quality control – Stephen Thomas*

Special teams coordinator – Dave Fipp

Coaches with an asterisk (*) are carryovers from 2020

Lions will hire Mark Brunell as the QB coach

Brunell played in New Orleans with Lions head coach Dan Campbell

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The Detroit Lions continue to add former NFL players to the coaching staff. Longtime NFL quarterback Mark Brunell will be hired as the team’s new QB coach, per multiple reports.

Brunell interviewed with the Lions this week and his hiring is expected to be finalized quickly. He currently works as a radio host in Jacksonville, where he spent the highest points of his long playing career.

Brunell has coaching experience but only at the high school level. He played 17 years in the NFL, starting with the Green Bay Packers as a fifth-round draft pick in 1993 out of Washington. He played for the Packers, Jaguars, Jets, Washington and the Saints, where Brunell finished his career as a teammate of new Lions head coach Dan Campbell. A lefty, Brunell was one of the best dual-threat QBs of his era.

The biggest upsets in NFL divisional round history

Touchdown Wire revisits the biggest upsets in NFL divisional round playoff history.

If you go strictly by record and homefield advantage, San Francisco, Baltimore, Kansas City and Green Bay should be the winners of this weekend’s playoff games. But there is no such thing as a given in the postseason. Especially in the divisional round.

History has shown that upsets – including some very big ones – often take place in the divisional round. That’s why it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if Minnesota, Tennessee, Houston or Seattle pulls off an upset this week.

Divisional round upsets have taken place before and they’ll take place again. Let’s take a look at the nine biggest upsets in divisional round history:

1985: Patriots 27, Raiders 20

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This was a historic season for the Patriots. They became the first team in history to make it to the Super Bowl by winning three straight road games. The victory in Los Angeles was especially big because the Raiders had gone 12-4 and appeared to be one of the league’s dominant teams. The Patriots also won at Miami the following week, but got crushed in the Super Bowl by the Chicago Bears.

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Jaguars remain 7.5-point underdogs with slight change to the over/under

The Jags’ still are viewed as big-time underdogs to the red-hot Falcons.

Not much has changed on the wagering side when it comes to the matchup between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Atlanta Falcons.

According to BetMGM, the Jaguars are still 7.5-point underdogs heading into Sunday’s game against the Falcons. The only thing that has changed slightly is the over/under which is now set at 46.5 points. That represents an small increase from the earlier total of 45.5 points from the beginning of the week.

As for the money line, the Dirty Birds are down as -334-point favorites, meaning that a bettor would have to place a $334 wager to win $100. The Jags are on the money line as a +260-point underdog, which means that a wager of $100 would win $260.

Both teams not only share identical records at 5-9, but they also share the same record against the spread at 5-8 meaning that both teams have been tough to bet on this season.

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