Sunday, January 02, 2000
Players to watch
• With Pro Bowler Mark Brunell sidelined with sprained knee ligaments, Jaguars QB Jay Fiedler makes his first NFL start and 12th appearance in his fourth season. His longest completion of his career, 23 yards to Jimmy Smith, came against the Bengals in garbage time of the 41-10 Halloween blowout in Cincinnati this season.
Fiedler spent 25 days as a Bengal in 1996 training camp after two seasons in Philadelpha and then got cut in Dave Shula's last camp. Then he went to the World League and was an assistant at Hofstra until Minnesota called last season and he played in his first five games.
In week 6 this season, he led a 24-7 comeback win over Cleveland by racking up 17 points in the Jags'last three possessions. The first TD pass of Fiedler's career gave Jacksonville the lead for good.
At 6-foot-2, 218 pounds, Fiedler is a decent athlete, has a decent arm and has decent speed. But he's no Brunell and his job today is to use his Ivy League education and make sure he makes fewer mistakes than his talented teammates make plays.
• Pro Bowl defensive end Tony Brackens lines up on the right. Make that the left. No, back to the right. . .
Brackens could have a field day against the battered Bengals tackle spot and line up on either side any play. Jamain Stephens is playing right tackle for Willie Anderson and left tackle Rod Jones is trying to gut through a small cartilage tear.
If Jones can't go, second-year guard Mike Goff, who hasn't played tackle since his freshman year at Iowa, gets the big matchup. The key is the running back giving the tackle help on passing downs. Goff saw the Titans on film last week overplay Brackens' quickness to the outside with the back giving help so the tackle can keep an eye on Brackens' inside move.
Brackens has been drawing a crowd this season with 12 sacks. Against Cincinnati on Halloween, the Bengals didn't let him go nuts in holding him to a sack and two tackles for a loss.
•
All eyes were on wide receiver Carl Pickens after last season's finale, a 35-0 drubbing to Tampa Bay in which his effort was questioned. His case wasn't helped when he rolled into the locker room singing, “This is it,” believing it was his last game in Cincinnati.
But his trade demand wasn't met, so last week before this season's finale Pickens made an other desperate attempt to get out by ripping coach Bruce Coslet. He later apologized, but his seed has been sown.
Pickens assured position coach Steve Mooshagian he would play hard today and you can best believe Coslet is keeping a close eye on his intensity and will pull him at the slightest jake.
Pickens should want to show up, considering he's got 37 catches in nine games against the Jags. He's got seven touchdowns, too, but none in the last five games.
• With the Bengals facing a quarterback making his first NFL start, it falls to the front seven to make sure it stuffs Jags running back Fred Taylor and force Jay Fiedler to throw.
The heart and soul of that front seven is inside backers Takeo Spikes and Brian Simmons. They'll have to pursue to hem in Taylor's sweeps, but be careful they don't overpursue and fall victim to Taylor's cutbacks. Look for them to blitz up the middle because the Titans showed the Jags' weak points in the offensive line are in the interior.
Spikes and Simmons have cleary asserted themselves as playmakers. Each has three sacks and Spikes has two interceptions, four fumble recoveries and four forced fumbles.
A key matchup could be Simmons on tight end Kyle Brady, a key blocker in the Jags' second-best running game in the NFL.
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