Right offensive tackle Maurice Williams is lost to the Jaguars for the season following Sunday's lower leg injury against the Titans. Coach Tom Coughlin confirmed today Williams will have surgery (Wednesday) on his broken right fibula. "He'll have to be placed on injured reserve," Coughlin said.
Meanwhile, Coughlin said quarterback Mark Brunell's condition improved with a night's rest. Brunell suffered a concussion in the first quarter of the Jaguars' 23-14 loss in Nashville and was replaced for the remainder of the game by rookie David Garrard.
"Mark is better today. He still has some semblance of a headache. Yesterday, the light bothered him; the headache was severe. Today, the headache is not severe. The word this morning was moderate," Coughlin said.
"The doctors feel confident Mark will be ready to go" Sunday in Baltimore, Coughlin added.
It's the second concussion Brunell has suffered in a little more than a year. He had to leave a game against Cleveland a year ago after defensive tackle Gerard Warren struck Brunell with a helmet-to-helmet blow that resulted in a $35,000 fine on Warren. This morning, Coughlin phoned NFL Director of Officiating Mike Pereira to complain of the helmet-to-helmet nature of Titans cornerback Samari Rolle's hit on Brunell yesterday. Rolle hit Brunell along the Jaguars sideline as Brunell was delivering a pass.
Coughlin said he expects Rolle to be fined. "Sure I do. I just talked to Mike Pereira this morning. There is no place in the rules in which the quarterback can be hit helmet to helmet. I don't know what game they were watching," Coughlin added of Sunday's officiating crew, headed by referee Jeff Triplette. Rolle was not penalized on the play.
The Jaguars must now begin dealing with the fall-out of Brunell's injury. Following the Warren incident last season, Brunell turned in sub-par performances in the following two games. Coughlin acknowledged that fact.
"I hope that's not the case," Coughlin said of this year's injury.
The Jaguars head coach was encouraged by the play of Garrard, "because of the play-making ability," Coughlin said, referring to Garrard's touchdown runs of four and 41 yards.
"I really feel I shouldn't have scaled (down) what I did," he said of limiting the offensive game plan to accommodate Garrard, who was in his first-ever serious NFL regular-season action. "I didn't react real well to the first interception and that was part of the reason."
Despite having thrown two interceptions and doing very little else in the passing game, Garrard's scrambling ability got the Jaguars to within 16-14 late in the third quarter. "Even though it hadn't been our day, it's 16-14, and we didn't react very well then," Coughlin said, referring to a game-clinching, 68-yard touchdown drive by the Titans.
"The real disappointment was people going into that environment and setting and not being prepared. Obviously, I didn't do a good enough job of getting them ready to go," he said.
Coughlin spent much time last week cautioning his team that Tennessee had its back to the wall and would play extra hard. "We weren't able to convey that. We were still a little happy about the Philadelphia game and let a couple of work days go by without getting much done, and guess what," Coughlin said.
"We were blocked and we were covered up. We didn't have a lot of people running free. We were outplayed on both lines of scrimmage. They were more physical and played harder," Coughlin said.
