Vic: Players drive to an airport cargo area where they park in a hangar-type building, proceed through security and board the plane, which is parked outside. Players drive to the airport because they want to get home as soon as possible after the plane lands in Jacksonville. Busing to the stadium and driving home from there would add another half hour to the itinerary.

Vic: A few weeks ago I promised a telling story on the economics of having the Jaguars in Jacksonville and what the issues are the Jaguars are confronting in their attempts to sell tickets. That story is soon to be posted. It cites a recent economic study conducted by the University of Central Florida.

Vic: Why bother with perception when you can deal with reality? It’s on the game tape from Sunday. The pass-protection was not good.

Vic: You’re throwing around accusations pretty loosely. At this point in time, Groves hasn’t been issued any kind of a citation for a traffic violation. He wasn’t suspended or deactivated because there were mitigating circumstances involved in missing the flight. He was involved in an accident on airport property, very near the Jaguars’ boarding area. He missed the flight and then booked his own passage to Seattle, where he arrived before Friday night’s curfew. He was fined by Jack Del Rio for missing the team flight. Those are the facts as we know them.

Vic: Sometimes you just have to tough it out.

Vic: No, I still wouldn’t do it because I would never do it. First of all, Allen got $31 million in guaranteed money from the Vikings. This team can’t take that kind of financial risk for a player who had two DUI’s when he was traded and was almost certainly enrolled in the league’s substance abuse program and may have been subject to suspension with his next positive test or violation. The risk was fantastic, not to mention the high price the Vikings paid in draft choices. Kansas City traded Allen and a sixth-round pick for the Vikings’ first-round pick (17th overall), two third-round picks and a sixth-rounder, all of those picks in the 2008 draft. I want the picks, not the player, the contract, the liability and the risk. Here’s what I would’ve done: I would’ve drafted Joe Flacco in the first round and Steve Slaton in the third round and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Yes, you have to hit on your picks.

Vic: I don’t know how long, I just know it’s long. When you invest that kind of pick and money in a guy, there’s no quitting on him until you are absolutely sure he can’t play. Rashard Mendenhall is the best current example. He had bust written all over him when Mike Tomlin “benched” him a couple of weeks ago because he hadn’t passed his written exam the week of the game. The following week, a “new” Mendenhall rushed for 160 yards and had another impressive game this past Sunday. You can’t say I’m patient but. There are no buts. You’re either patient or you’re not.

Vic: Those video boards are compromising the integrity of the game by giving one player a competitive advantage over another. How about a running back breaking into the open and looking at the big board to know where his pursuers are? He can see when the guy chasing him dives to make the tackle and then step to the side to avoid the tackle. That’s a terrible competitive advantage. I don’t know what the solution is but until one is found, those boards should be turned off during the play.

Vic: What that tells me is that Fisher is not ready, yet, to draw a line in the sand. Coaches know their teams better than we do. He probably knows this isn’t the right time, but you can bet the time will come. Kearse is one of the Titans’ heritage players and they lost a heritage player this past summer when Steve McNair was slain. This is sensitive stuff. It sounds to me as though the Titans are heading for an end-of-the-season rebirth.

Vic: Yes, there’s a precedent for it. A prospective buyer for the Redskins was denied and so was the author Tom Clancy, who was attempting to purchase the Vikings.

Vic: The league is loaded with good, young quarterbacks and Henne is one of them. I so much wanted the Jaguars to draft him. That position is too important to ignore. The good news for the Jaguars is there’s a bumper crop of quarterbacks coming into the next few drafts. The current crop of young quarterbacks in the NFL rivals the 1970’s.

Vic: I like them both, but I like Henne a little more because the Dolphins got him in the second round and that makes him less of a risk.

Vic: He’s started the last two games.

Vic: Run-stuffers are easier to find than pass-rushers.

Vic: It’s all about ESPN. That’s when this all started. ESPN turned sports into entertainment.

Vic: John Henderson kept saying, “We should’ve won that game,” and then he started to cry and Terrance Knighton and Montavious Stanley hugged him. David Garrard gathered his offense around him and started yelling, “This can never happen again.” Then the players removed the seats and started practicing plays. I heard someone say, “We have to do it for the fans.” The atmosphere was intense.

Vic: Phoenix is in the Mountain Time zone, not Pacific. Because Phoenix stays on Standard Time, half of the year is a three-hour difference from the Eastern Time zone and half of the year is a two-hour difference. I limited the comparison to teams in the Pacific Time zone and Eastern Time zone because it would’ve been too difficult to do the research if I had to factor in the time change from Daylight to Standard Time. Also, the miles just aren’t there because Phoenix isn’t Pacific Time, it’s Mountain Time. I’ll tell you this: If I had included Arizona in my math, the numbers would’ve gotten a lot better for the point I was trying to make because the Cardinals are one of the all-time Eastern Time zone dogs. They were 0-6 in the Eastern Time zone in the regular season last year and are 3-17 in the regular season in the East since 2003.

Vic: Anybody can wear the clear visor but only players with a medical condition that requires the use of a dark visor may wear one.

Vic: That’s the horror story to which I was referring. We went to Seattle on a Friday and didn’t return until Monday night because a fog descended on Seattle that weekend. After the game on Sunday, some of the players went out on the town, including a group that went to one of those western bars that had mechanical bulls and metered punching bags. A quarterback named Cliff Stoudt proceeded to break his throwing hand on one of those gizmos. They awakened Chuck Noll in the middle of the night to tell him what had happened. He then informed the messenger that we would leave in the morning, fog or no fog. I remember not being able to see the tip of the wing as we raced down the runway, and I remember complete silence as we climbed through the fog. They told us we would be in the “soup” for 20 seconds, but it was a lot longer than that. All of a sudden, we burst into bright sunshine and Mt. Rainier was right under us.

Vic: Every team has access to every game played and the quality of the tapes are of the highest caliber. The film vault also includes just about every college game played in the last several years. I could go down the hall and ask to see a copy of the 2006 North Dakota vs. North Dakota State game and have it in my hands or in my inbox within a few minutes.