However, two other contests jump out versus teams we expect to be playoff caliber. Home to Chicago in week 5, a team that likely would have made playoffs last year if not for QB Jay Cutler’s injury. Furthermore, Chicago added WR Brandon Marshall… At Buffalo in week 13 (improved defense added Mario Williams).

Therefore, we can state half of Jacksonville’s schedule is against playoff caliber opponents on paper coming into the season. The schedule is already looking harder on paper than originally meets the eye.

A home game versus the Jets in week 14 may also prove difficult to win as the Jets defense can be tremendous.

Other potentially difficult matchups include the 2 customary tilts with Tennessee.

Lighter competition in 2012 includes; @Minnesota in week 1, @Indianapolis in week 3, @Oakland in week 7, home to Indianapolis in week 10, and @Miami in week 15.

As you can see, 4 out of 5, or 80% of Jacksonville’s easier contests are on the road, making these games that much tougher… While 7 of 8 of Jacksonville’s hardest games are at home.

A key to Jacksonville’s season will be how often they can rise to the occasion at home against much better teams. Perhaps 1 or 2 times could be expected. But 7 is a large number for this category.

Record Projection:
In 2012 we now project the Jaguars to go (4-12), a slight downgrade from our opening projection, and falling shy of the Vegas season win total of 5.5 games.

With the worst passing offense in the prior campaign, the Jaguars will rely on free agent WR Laurent Robinson, and 1st round pick WR Justin Blackmon to make an impact. But much of it will be up to Blaine Gabbert playing against a very rough home schedule. So we’re not expecting much improvement in the record department year over year.

Of course the Jaguars have a solid run defense. And if their pass defense can get up to speed, then there is certainly some upside to this projection.

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