He had the one big year in 2007, including the playoff win at Pittsburgh when Garrard converted the 4th and 1 with a long run off the left side, and Garrard played well when the Jaguars gave unbeaten New England a scare for three quarters.
Then Garrard quickly regressed when seemingly entering his peak years. I don't pretend to know what happened but one buddy in Las Vegas caught onto it quickly. He insisted in early 2008 that Garrard was a shell of the player of a year earlier, making poor reads and missing receivers. I wish I had invested more confidently in his advice. Jacksonville was a woeful 4-12 against the spread in 2008. You almost never see anything like that in the NFL.
Again, I don't care about looking at tape. Stepping back and evaluating the big picture, it's a 34 year old quarterback who was coming off some subpar seasons, then cut and out of the league for a year. For every time you'll hit big on that type of investment I'd conservatively estimate you'll either have no change or a net negative at least 8 times as often.
Jeff Ireland doesn't understand mathematical realities like that. He's got money to toy around with, and no worries about the smile disappearing from his face.
The idea is to have great players at the premium positions and pay them handsomely, then take a gamble that they'll stay on the field and you won't have to use the bargain basement backups. Ireland constructs a team exactly the opposite, with a couple of moderately paid players at the position, chewing up nearly as much as one terrific player would demand.
If I didn't know better I'd think Jeff Ireland designed our stadium. Where was he circa '85 and '86?