The mayor of Jacksonville, Florida loved seeing the New York Jets put a W in the win column.
With the New York Jets getting their first win of the season in Week 15 over the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, the Jacksonville Jaguars are now in the driver’s seat to get the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
The mayor of Jacksonville, Florida Lenny Curry took to Twitter on Sunday evening to celebrate the Jets’ monumental victory. His city’s professional team is also an utterly toothless 1-13 on the season, but the Jaguars would have the right to take Clemson Tigers quarterback Trevor Lawrence with the top selection by virtue of the NFL‘s tie-breaking procedures. What a day it was for Duval!
Trevor Lawrence can be to Jacksonville what Peyton Manning was to Indianapolis
The Jaguars have the longest active losing streak in the NFL at 13 games. After going 6-10 last season, the Jaguars went on to win their first game of 2020 over the AFC South rival Indianapolis Colts and have since preceded to lose every subsequent game. Gardner Minshew was a revelation last year, but the Mississippi Mustache has no chance to compete with Lawrence’s flowing mane.
The significance of this Jets’ win is seismic. Lawrence is the best quarterback prospect since Andrew Luck went to Indianapolis in 2012. Interestingly enough, the two other once-in-a-generation quarterback talents in the last 40 years also went to the Colts. Peyton Manning went to Indianapolis in 1998, while John Elway spurned the then-Baltimore Colts back in 1983.
While Luck did not have good luck with injuries in his short NFL career, Manning is the reason the Colts still play in Indianapolis. This was a dead franchise prior to Manning’s selection in 1998. There was no juice to the Colts organization after the late Bob Irsay moved the team from Baltimore, Maryland to Indianapolis, Indiana in the middle of the night way back in 1984.
Simply put, without Manning, there is a great chance this team is known as the Las Vegas Colts, the Los Angeles Colts or even the San Antonio Colts. Manning was the most important sports figure in the Hoosier State since Bob Knight led the Indiana Hoosiers to three national titles on the hardwood. There is a belief Lawrence could be the same franchise savior for the Jacksonville.
The Jaguars have never been able to have any long-term success at the quarterback position since their days as an elite expansion team under Tom Coughlin with Mark Brunell under center in the late 1990s. Jacksonville has had one season of note in the last decade-plus, as Calais Campbell was the Mayor of Sacksonville on this elite 2017 defense that nearly won the AFC.
The idea is Lawrence will be such a captivating talent for the Jaguars that it will keep the small market AFC team from possibly relocating overseas to London where they have a huge international following. Leave it up to a college star in a major college media market with long blonde hair that would made any Lynyrd Skynyrd fan jealous. No wonder the mayor is happy.
With two more losses, Jacksonville will be on the clock to take the franchise’s most important pick.