ANALYSIS/OPINION
“NFL Expansion Surprise: Jacksonville Jaguars.”
Surprise? It was a shock then and remains — 25 years later, as the Jaguars prepare to face the New England Patriots in Foxboro Sunday in the AFC title game — a mistake that destroyed football in one city and set the NFL up as a mom-and-pop corner grocery in a city that had no business getting an NFL franchise.
Those few Jaguars fans who have shown up in recent years at the EverBank Field to sit in seats that weren’t covered over to avoid pictures of an empty stadium can thank one man in particular for football in Jacksonville — the late Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke.