The following is Jaguars tight end Pete Mitchell's diary for Oct. 7-13.
Monday, October 7, 2002
We had to come in after the Eagles game and watch tape of that. The team was real upbeat after a big win for us. We beat what was supposedly the top contender in the NFC for the Super Bowl. We beat them pretty well and played real well against them, so we had a lot of confidence.
Tuesday, October 8, 2002
I woke up, took my daughter to school, went out and played some golf. I was better than I was the week before. I think I shot a 41. I wouldn't say it was a completely legit 41. I enjoyed that, got some lunch by myself, some quiet time, then went and picked my daughter up from school. We went and saw a movie in the afternoon; "Veggie Tales."
Wednesday, October 9, 2002
Wednesday was my birthday. So, Wednesday was kind of a cool day. It was a long day at the stadium, getting ready for Tennessee. We did a little practicing, got our game plan in and all of that, and then when I got home I had a nice dinner; my wife cooked us dinner. She gave me a new suit and then had a Barney cake that my daughter picked out for me -- very nice -- and she got me a couple of games to play with her. She got me "Mousetrap" and "Operation," two good-old games. So that brought me back a few years. Played with those for a while and that was pretty much my birthday. Last year it was on a Tuesday, which was nice. My wife had set up a nice golf date for me at this really nice course in Detroit where they're going to hold the Ryder Cup in a couple of years. This year it was a little tougher for us since it was a Wednesday; you know, it was our long day, so I didn't get home until about 5:30.
Thursday, October 10, 2002
It was kind of the same long day. Boston College-Virginia Tech was on that night, so I was pretty excited about watching my alma mater play. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so well for BC. They played 'em tough but basically gave the game away. Tech tried to give it to BC, but BC wouldn't take it; they kept giving it back. They turned the ball over four times in the red area and all of that, so it was a frustrating night to watch TV.
Friday, October 11, 2002
Friday comes and we do the shorter practice times; kind of fine-tune all of the things, and that's when you get excited about the game coming up. There wasn't extra motivation, but I saw Jevon Kearse wasn't playing and that a lot of their guys were banged up. It was really an opportunity for us to get a win on the road against a tough team, especially in the division, and it was that much more disappointing not to win that game because you felt like all things were just kind of lining up for us, and maybe that worked against us. Maybe guys felt like we had it in the bag going in there. Guys were maybe a little overconfident, as far as thinking we weren't playing a good team, and obviously we did.
Saturday, October 12, 2002
We walk through certain plays out on the field, go through a lot of special teams situations, depth chart, that type of thing. Then on away trips we come back in, shower right away, get ready and then a lot of the guys will drive to the airport for the flight. It's all team and team personnel and sponsors and that type of thing. So the charter flights are pretty nice because you get treated well with the food. The flight attendants are always passing good food around. It's not a regular flight when you get crackers and that's it.
Sunday, October 13, 2002
It was a late game so we got to sleep in a little bit. It was a cool day in Tennessee, which was nice; a nice change for a lot of the guys here. It was good fall football weather with that football kind of smell in the air. I think we were ready to play, mentally, before the game. We just kind of came out flat and Mark getting knocked out early in the game I think was a little blow to the offense. Psychologically, you know, you get that look in your eye. Mark came back but he didn't seem like he was all there, and then he obviously couldn't go on any further. David Garrard came in. I think we've all got a lot of confidence in David, but at the same time he's just a rookie and hasn't been in that game situation. It took a little while for us to get our offense going and we weren't able to sustain any drives on offense so we only had the ball for 20-some minutes the entire game, which is not a lot. Until the second half we didn't put any drives together and put our defense in a lot of bad situations. I played all right. I only had a handful of snaps because of the lack of snaps on offense plus a lot of the stuff we did on offense was just using one tight end, so Kyle Brady was in there most of the game. I could've played better. Nothing really poor, but at the same time I didn't do anything outstanding.
