My Attempt to Make a Conference Call With Jack Del Rio Exciting

Since I purchased group tickets for last season’s Pittsburgh Steelers-Jacksonville Jaguars game in Jacksonville, the Jaguars consider me one of their best fans. Therefore, they invited me to join the head coach in a live conference call Tuesday evening. Although I didn’t know what to expect, I figured that I should prepare some questions. With the help of some of my Facebook friends, here are some suggested questions I had for Coach Del Rio (mostly inappropriate):

- Where do you think the Jaguars will move when they leave Jacksonville?
- Do you think the season hinges on the performance of Mark Brunell and Jimmy Smith? (Brunnell is a 39 year-old back-up for New Orleans; Smith retired several years ago)
- Besides Maurice Jones-Drew, what Jacksonville player should I have on my fantasy team?
- Why didn’t you draft Jacksonville’s favorite son, Tim Tebow?



When I got into the conference call, I quickly learned that this was a moderated call. If you pressed *3, you were put on a waiting list where someone would at some point take your question and pass it on to the coach. While I waited my turn, here are the questions asked of the coach and his answers (or at least how I wanted him to answer the questions):

Q: Do you see the team being able to stretch the field?
A: No. Our QB has trouble throwing the deep ball and we have really slow receivers that can’t get separation. Why do you think we give the ball to MJD so much?

Q: Do you have any interest in trading for Brady Quinn?
A: Yes. In fact, we like him so much, that we want to send Denver our first round draft pick in 2011 and 2012.

Q: Who would you have drafted if Tyson Alualu wasn’t available?
A: Oh, there were probably a dozen other players. We really reached for Alualu because our pass rush was terrible last year and we need more Hawaiians on our team. If you look at the past 10 Super Bowl Champions, nearly all of them had Samoans on their team. Hawaii is part of Samoa, right?

Q: Does DE Derrick Harvey need to improve?
A: No. He’s the greatest player ever, and will be in the Hall of Fame immediately after he retires. The NFL will waive the 5-year retirement rule to get him in the Hall of Fame ASAP. He’s fine.

After about 20 minutes of listening to the rather stale responses, the moderator came to me. I presented the moderator with two questions: What does the team need to do to supplant the Colts as the division’s best team? Will Coach Del Rio wear a suit on the sideline?



A few minutes later, they asked the coach the suit question.

A: I may. We’ll see.

Thanks Coach! Actually, the moderator kept this topic going by suggesting that the Monday night game against Tennessee would be a perfect opportunity to wear the suit. Del Rio did give a definitive statement by saying that he would not wear a suit for the September 12th 1:00 game since it would be too hot.

Once they switched topics, I hung up as I had enough.