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Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback David Garrard owns one of the sharpest wardrobes of any player in the NFL, probably because he pays a fashion consultant to pick out fabric that help him make his sleek-looking tailored suits.
This is a player who always seems to look like a million bucks.
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| Couldn't the Jaguars have waited several more months to give David Garrard that huge Christmas gift? (US Presswire) |
Garrard signed a seven-year, $60-million contract extension with the team Monday, which means he won't be going into the 2008 season playing the final year of his deal as a lame duck of sorts.
Good for him. He's a good guy. He has battled back from Crohn's Disease and he is coming off a heck of a first season as a full-time starter.
But why did the Jaguars do it now? Why not wait? Why not see him do it again?
Isn't there a chance he could be the quarterback version of The Starland Vocal Band or Billy Ray Cyrus, just another one-hit wonder?
There is no doubt Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio is a big Garrard guy, which is part of the reason this got done. They are tied at the hip now after Del Ro released Byron Leftwich last September, nine days before the start of the regular season, and made Garrard his starter.
The move paid off. Garrard has a good season -- not great -- and the Jaguars won a playoff game before playing well in losing at New England in a divisional playoff game.
Del Rio got a fat contract extension last week and now his quarterback will be with him through the five years he has left on that deal.
"What you see is a young man who persevered, ultimately a coach who saw something, took a shot with him, and now we're together for the foreseeable future and tied together for more," Del Rio said at a news conference Monday.
The two deals will help create goodwill in a city where fans can turn on the team in a hurry. In the early days of the franchise, the Jaguars sold out all the time. Now they have a hard time selling out games even though they've covered thousands of seats at their stadium.
Winning helps cure that, but it doesn't help when starting corner Brian Williams is quoted last week in a police report from his November 2006 DUI arrest as making racial and sexist remarks to the arresting officer. That turned off a lot of fans.