Stroud's Return

It will be interesting this week to see how the crowd reacts to Marcus Stroud's first appearance in Jacksonville as a non-Jaguar. Stroud was an outstanding player for seven years and made three trips to Hawaii, which is no small feat for anyone playing in a small market. He represented an important link from the new direction Tom Coughlin envisioned after he rebuilt the great team of the late-90s. Along with John Henderson, Stroud was part of Coughlin's effort to make the team nastier and more physical on defense, two traits that never quite characterized the bend-but-don't-break era of 1996-1999. Of course, Coughlin never did get to see those efforts pan out on the field, but much of Del Rio's subsequent success derived from moves that his predecessor made (Stroud, Henderson, Garrard, Ayodele, Mo Williams, McCree, Meester, Meier) on draft day. Stroud was one of the final pieces of that transition era, and always appeared to give it his all when he wasn't injured. He could feast on our running game on Sunday due to the fact that we'll be breaking in two new guards on the opposite side of the line. Perhaps knowing his tendencies and skills so well will make it easy for Del Rio to game-plan against him, though I'd feel a lot better about the situation if Williams and Manuwai were out there.