Jaguars to Start Rookie QB Gabbert at Panthers

Coach Jack Del Rio named Gabbert the starter Wednesday, switching signal callers three days after Luke McCown threw four interceptions against the New York Jets. The move comes a little more than a week after Del Rio released veteran starter David Garrard following a poor preseason and a three-interception practice.

Gabbert will make his first start Sunday at Carolina.

“He’s a big strong kid whose really been kind of a star quarterback his whole life,” Del Rio said. “We think he has a chance to be a franchise-type quarterback. He’s getting a chance now to be our starting quarterback and become that guy.”

The transition was inevitable since the Jaguars selected Gabbert with the 10th pick in April’s draft. Del Rio had hoped to take it slow with the former Missouri standout, even planning to give him a year to watch and learn behind Garrard. But Garrard struggled in the preseason and was outplayed by McCown, a career backup.

Del Rio named McCown the starter five days before the season opener. McCown did enough to win the opener against Tennessee, but his ninth start in eight seasons was a debacle. He was picked off four times, could have thrown a couple more and was sacked for a safety — all in just three quarters

McCown wanted a chance to redeem himself, but understood the decision.

“Who’s to say what one deserves,” McCown said. “It would do me or this team zero good to sit and say I deserve another chance. I didn’t perform last week and that’s just the blunt fact of it. I didn’t play well enough to give our team a chance to win. I’m big enough to stand up here and say that.”

McCown completed 6 of 19 passes for 59 yards against the Jets, finishing with a 1.8 quarterback rating.

The Jets won 32-3, the second worst loss in Del Rio’s nine-year tenure. And since he’s widely considered to be coaching for his future — team owner Wayne Weaver said the Jaguars need to make the playoffs for Del Rio to stick around another year — it was reasonable to wonder whether he would put his fate in the hands of a rookie quarterback.

Del Rio chuckled when asked whether he went to Weaver to see if playing 14 games with a first-year quarterback would change expectations.

“I don’t look at life like that,” Del Rio said. “I’m a competitive guy. We expect to be a good football team. That will not change. Absolutely not would be a better way to say it. The furthest thing from my mind.”

Gabbert threw 40 touchdown passes and 18 interceptions as a two-year starter at Missouri. Because of the NFL lockout, he missed minicamp, organized team activities and dozens of meetings with offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter.

Nonetheless, he impressed coaches and teammates with his arm strength, pocket presence, situational awareness and speed.

Del Rio said he considered going with Gabbert after opting to part ways with Garrard. But chose to give McCown a chance. He said Gabbert has shown progress in two weeks.

“We’re excited,” Del Rio said. “There’s a little freshness to it. There’s big upside potential.”

Gabbert’s teammates rave about his confidence. Guard Uche Nwaneri recalled Gabbert’s first live huddle, at New England in the preseason opener. Gabbert stared everyone in the eyes, then yelled, “Let’s (expletive) go, guys,” Nwaneri said.

“He’s got all the confidence in the world,” Nwaneri said. “He’s got a good swagger about him. He knows what the challenge is going to be. I think he’ll thrive against the challenge. He was drafted high and he’s itching for an opportunity to get in and make an impact, and now he’s getting an opportunity to do that.”

Gabbert has wanted to be a starting quarterback in the NFL since he first played football at age 11, so he’s looking forward to it and expecting a few jitters.

“You’re always going to have butterflies,” Gabbert said. “When you’re doing something you love, that you care so much about and you put so much time and effort in throughout the week, you’re going to have butterflies. I think something’s wrong if you don’t have them. That just means the adrenaline’s going and you’re ready to go.”

Jets’ Defense Removes All Doubt Against Jaguars

But over by the far bank of lockers, where Darrelle Revis resides, there was a brief lecture given in Trash-Talking 101.

It was one thing that his coach, Rex Ryan, and the team’s defensive staff had challenged the unit to improve after a leaky game last week, to match expectation with performance. It was quite another for a Jaguars backup receiver, Jason Hill, to insinuate that Revis did not deserve his reputation as the best shutdown cornerback in football. Revis said he was “so sad, so sad, so sad” that Hill did not play Sunday because of a hip injury.

“I guess he got the New York Jets flu,” Revis said.

If so, Hill must have spread it among his teammates. The Jets’ defense, when it harasses, pesters and swarms as it did Sunday, has that effect on teams. It can make them sick. On a day when offset two touchdown passes with two interceptions, he looked like Joe Namath compared with his Jacksonville counterpart, Luke McCown, who was sacked for a safety and completed nearly as many passes to Jets defenders (four) as he did to his own players (six). McCown’s quarterback rating was 1.8 — the lowest ever against the Jets.

“That’s not my personal record, but we’re working on it,” Ryan said.

Next week, perhaps? Through two games, the Jets are 2-0, just as they expected, just as they planned, heading into a stretch of three difficult games away from MetLife Stadium — at Oakland, Baltimore and New England.

They are 2-0 despite a modest showing by Sanchez, who after throwing for 182 yards flogged himself for committing two more turnovers, and an ankle injury to the All-Pro center Nick Mangold, who hobbled around in a boot and on crutches. X-rays were negative, but a magnetic resonance imaging test is expected Monday.

“Just blocking, I got rolled up on,” said Mangold, who declined to speculate on his status. “And then, pain.”

When they review the game tape Monday, the Jets are bound to identify several trouble spots, among them Sanchez’s interceptions, their seven penalties and an offensive line that worked to gain continuity after Mangold was replaced in the first quarter by Colin Baxter.

But on first blush, Ryan said he was pleased, pleased that both areas that had been isolated for improvement — first-quarter efficiency and defense, as a whole — had rewarded him.

During their team meeting Saturday night, Ryan challenged his offense, which had not produced a first-quarter touchdown in 16 games. If the Jets won the coin toss, he said, he would defy his standard philosophy of deferring to the second half. We’re taking the ball, he told them.

“He mentioned it,” right guard Brandon Moore said, allowing a brief smile as he expressed an understatement.

So when the Jets, represented at midfield by the entire offensive line and fullback John Conner, as if to punctuate Ryan’s point, did win the toss, Sanchez responded by directing a 65-yard drive capped by Santonio Holmes’s leaping 17-yard catch in the end zone. On the play, Holmes beat Drew Coleman, who had about as good a day as the Jacksonville secondary’s other former Jet, Dwight Lowery, who later delivered a late hit on Sanchez.

Sanchez popped up then to continue that third-quarter drive, which ended with Dustin Keller’s 11-yard touchdown catch, but left with the score 32-3 after being struck on the hand by Matt Roth on his final pass attempt.

Sanchez bemoaned his failed conversions and missed opportunities, lamenting how the Jets should have scored more points — and more often — than the two second-quarter field goals by Nick Folk. But the Jets could afford to live with such inefficiency because of a defense that took exception to yielding 390 yards last week to Dallas and, to a lesser extent, being reminded all week of how Jacksonville manhandled it during the teams’ last meeting, in November 2009.

“Constantly,” said Calvin Pace, who added of Ryan: “He’s always hard on defense. Rex doesn’t really give us a lot of love. It’s always not enough. It keeps us in the right mind frame.”

Antonio Cromartie had two interceptions, nearly returning one for a touchdown, and also averaged 42.5 yards on two kickoff returns. Eric Smith settled for one interception, though he could have had three. Muhammad Wilkerson, two games into his Jets career, has already produced more sacks than Vernon Gholston, the team’s last first-round pick at defensive end. It was Wilkerson who in the first quarter grabbed McCown at the Jaguars’ 1 and tossed him into the end zone like a sandbag. The safety gave the Jets a 9-0 lead less than five minutes into the game.

“Obviously, at that point, you’ve got them on their heels,” safety Jim Leonhard said. “You can start getting more aggressive and coming after them, and that’s what we did. We didn’t let up today. With the talent that we have, if we execute the game well and don’t make mistakes, we can do this to teams.”

By Ryan’s convoluted math, conference games are worth a game and a quarter in the standings, and so their next nine games will carry extra importance. At times, they played sloppily on Sunday. At times, their offense sputtered, though it did gain 101 yards on the ground.

But an overmatched opponent is no match at all for the Jets, whose fans recognized as much. Pockets of empty seats began forming early in the second half, and grew bigger as the fourth quarter started. Those who did stick around ostensibly did so to revel in a blowout, as rare around these parts for the Jets as steak tartare. It tasted just as good, too.

“When we watch the film tomorrow,” Revis said, “it should be all hoorays.”

Cox, Kampman Out; Lewis, Hill Doubtful for Jaguars

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The Jacksonville Jaguars will be without defensive starters Derek Cox and Aaron Kampman against the New York Jets and could be without tight end Marcedes Lewis and receiver Jason Hill.

Cox (chest) and Kampman (knee) were ruled out Friday. Lewis (calf) and Hill (hip) were listed as doubtful on the team’s injury report.

Cox, Lewis and Hill were injured in Sunday’s season opener. Cox missed practice all week. So did Kampman, who is recovering from reconstructive knee surgery.

Lewis and Hill returned to practice in a limited capacity Friday, but coach Jack Del Rio isn’t counting on either of them to play against the Jets.

If they can’t go, tight end Zach Miller and rookie receiver Cecil Shorts likely would have expanded roles.