Jaguars break bank for Del Rio, what about Garrard?

Florida Times-Union sports columnist Gene Frenette offers his weekly opinions on various topics for jacksonville.com This is his version posted for Thursday April 3.

Now that the Jaguars have given head coach Jack Del Rio a generous contract extension, worth over $20 million for the 2009-12 seasons, now comes the harder negotiation: reaching an agreement with quarterback David Garrard.
Based on conversations with Times-Union sources familiar with the negotiations, the Jaguars and Garrard have made progress toward a new deal, but remain significantly apart on the guaranteed money. Garrard is hoping to approach the $30 million in guarantees that Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo received last October on his $67 million contract. So far, the Jaguars are nowhere near that ballpark, which means that this negotiation could last a while longer because Garrard is believed unwilling to accept a deal significantly below Romo's.
Garrard is signed through next season and then becomes an unrestricted free agent, but the Jaguars could slap the franchise tag on him in 2009, but that tab will run somewhere in the $12-13 million range.
It's in both the Jaguars' and Garrard's best interest to lock up a deal before training camp for several reasons. One, the team has plenty of salary cap room and Garrard is anxious to sign a contract that will provide him a lifetime of financial security. For another, neither side wants an unresolved contract issue lingering all season with the franchise quarterback when the Jaguars figure to be a Super Bowl contender.
There's no way to accurately predict when, or if, the richest contract in team history will get done. Albert Irby, Garrard's agent, says the ball is in the Jaguars' court at this time. The Jaguars have declined to comment on the negotiations.
At Thursday's news conference announcing Del Rio's extension, owner Wayne Weaver said he hopes Garrard's deal will be done "sooner than later." It was a quick non-answer to a question that could remain up in the air beyond the April 26-27 NFL draft unless the two sides can quickly bridge the gap.
The Jaguars took care of Del Rio in a big way, giving him a whopping extension when you consider that the only NFL coaches averaging over $5 million per year have already won a Super Bowl. Del Rio's extension, which doesn't include the $3.5 million salary he was set to earn next season, is almost identical to the four-year, $21 million extension that the New York Giants gave former Jaguars' coach Tom Coughlin after winning this year's Super Bowl.
Del Rio reached the $5 million contract neighborhood that he was seeking. Now the question is: Will the Jaguars pony up to help Garrard reach his financial goal?


With the recently released police report involving Jaguars cornerback Brian Williams, which outlines his profane, sexually explicit and degrading comments toward women as detailed in policeman E.E. Bridges' notes from a September, 2006 drunken driving arrest, it puts the Jaguars in a difficult public relations dilemma.
There's no possible way to defend anything about a DUI, followed by allegations that Williams berated an officer of the law in such a distasteful manner.
Weaver and Del Rio properly condemned the things reportedly said, but they also didn't want to appear to take anybody's side because both stated that Williams denies making the racist and sexist remarks that were outlined in a front-page story in Wednesday's Times-Union.
Since Williams or his attorney, Hank Coxe, have yet to make a public statement to refute Bridges' account, it only magnifies the public sentiment building against the Jaguars' starting cornerback. There's no denying that Williams was in an impaired state at the time he rammed his vehicle into Bridges' patrol car, and he initially pleaded guilty to the charge, receiving a six-month probation sentence and suspended license.
A few weeks later, Williams withdrew his plea and in January, a judge approved it over the state's objections. At the time of his arrest, it was known that Williams verbally confronted the officer, but the details of what was said didn't become known until this week.
No matter how much Williams may deny the allegations, it's going to be a he-said, he-said situation. And given that Williams initiated the whole mess with his poor choices, it's going to be hard to take the word of an impaired NFL player over a sober police officer.
Williams has now received two rounds of negative publicity, and there remains the matter of whether the Jaguars or NFL commissioner Roger Godell will ultimately take any punitive measures as this case moves forward.
You have to figure Williams regrets a lot of things since his arrest. The biggest may be not sticking to his original plea so that this mess would have never come back to haunt him again.

With three of my original Final Four teams still in the hunt -- I picked Kansas, North Carolina, UCLA and Texas (Elite Eight loser to Memphis) -- I'm not going to change my position now.
I took Kansas to beat UCLA for the title before the tournament started. Even though North Carolina and Memphis have played better to this point, I'm sticking with the Jayhawks to cut down the nets Monday night against the Bruins.

On the NCAA women's tournament, there's a reason for Jacksonville hoop fans to tune in Sunday night when former Ribault High star Erica White, the senior starting point guard at LSU, closes out her college career with a fourth consecutive Final Four appearance. The Lady Tigers play defending national champion Tennessee in the second semifinal at 9:30 p.m., preceded by Connecticut-Stanford.
Another big day for White, along with former Ribault star Shante Williams of Florida State, will be next Wednesday (April 9) when the pair could become the first players from Jacksonville to be taken in the WNBA draft.