Friday, September 23, 2011

1995 expansion bowl

By Keith Antigiovanni

1995 expansion bowl V will take place this sunday when the Jacksonville Jaguars travel to Charlotte to take on the Carolina Panthers.

Jacksonville enters this game at 1-1 after a 17-10 opening day win over Tennessee and a blowout defeat against the New York Jets. Carolina is 0-2 after two close defeats against Arizona and Green Bay.

Its' been an unstable past few weeks for the Jaguars QB situation after 5-year starter David Garrard was waived before the end of preseason. Josh McCown became the starter and after a poor performance in week 2 has been benched in favor of rookie QB Blaine Gabbert.

Carolina's situation is a mirror image as they start rookie Cam Newton at QB. Newton is off to impressive start with 854 passing yards and 3 touchdowns but has made rookie mistakes which include four interceptions.

Coaches Jack Del Rio (Jacksonville) and Ron Rivera (Carolina) are content with allowing their young quarterbacks as starters. Carolina's situation is understandable since they arent expected to compete in the NFC South this year but with the Colts down the AFC South is not out of reach for a team like Jacksonville which almost won the South the previous year.

The two teams have faced each other four times with Jacksonville winning 3 of the 4 meetings.
1996 Jacksonville 24-14
1999 Jacksonville 22-20
2003 Carolina 24-23
2007 Jacksonville 37-6

Both teams have also had success over the past 16 years. Jacksonville is 134-124 overall with 2 AFC title game appearances (1996, 1999) while Carolina's overall record is not as impressive 119-139 but have made 3 NFC title games (1996, 2003, 2005) and an NFC title (2003).

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