We know that the Jaguars have been sorry on the field this season, but are they really a sorry organization?
That is exactly how David Garrard’s agent Al Irby described the Jaguars organization on Monday following news that Garrard needed immediate surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back.
According to Tania Ganguli of The Florida Times-Union, Irby is accusing the Jaguars organization of withholding information on Garrard’s injury.
“At $500,000 per game, they knew he would be down 4-6 weeks. They didn’t want to pay that bill,” Irby wrote to Ganguli. “Now you know the difference between a first-class organization like Indy, and a sorry organization like the Jags. Indy gave their QB a contract even though he couldn’t play all season. … David was told his back was fine. So he took them for their word.”
Unfortunately for Garrard, Irby did not draw an appropriate comparison to try to get his point across. In that quote Irby tried to draw a parallel between Garrard’s situation and Peyton Manning’s situation, but in truth the two situations have nothing in common.
Garrard was an overpaid quarterback who had not lived up to the terms of the huge contract he signed following his success in 2007. Garrard’s fate was not sealed when the Jaguars released him on September 6, but it was in fact sealed when the Jaguars traded up and used a first-round draft pick on quarterback Blaine Gabbert back in April. Regardless of a back injury, Garrard’s days in Jacksonville were certainly numbered.
On the other hand, Manning may be one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history who was a free agent after last season. The entire Colts roster is built around having Manning on the field and they had no option but to give him a new contract. As we have seen so far this season, the Colts have no contingency plan in the event that Manning is injured. Manning is still the future of the Colts franchise, while Garrard was no longer in the future plans of the Jaguars.
Garrard himself never suspected that there was anything wrong with his back until he went to the hospital two weeks ago and had an MRI, well after the Jaguars released him. If Irby suspected that Garrard’s injury was more serious than the Jaguars were telling, than why has Irby been shopping his client around for the past six weeks?
The timeline of events over the past two months certainly does not support Irby’s ridiculous claims. It all just seems like an agent that is still bitter over how his client was released.
In the end, the Jaguars organization decided to move towards the future with Gabbert as their quarterback and decided that paying Garrard $8 million to stand on the sidelines with a clipboard would not be fiscally sound.
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