by Kevin Hench

Jack Del Rio's Jaguars are in danger of pulling off a horrendous back-to-back feat. (Doug Pensinger / Getty Images)

Both teams are in last place in their divisions (the Jags are tied with the Texans) and facing rough second-half schedules as they try to navigate a path to the playoffs.

One team's coach is a fireball of energy running out of ways to inspire his team. The other is so even-keeled as to appear comatose. Neither approach is working.

Meanwhile, the Al Davis crypt cleaning continues in Oakland, Joey Porter is making sense and dawn breaks on a new era in Cleveland.

These are the Sundays of Our Lives.

Jagged Jags

It's come to this for the disappointing Jaguars: Head coach Jack Del Rio decided it was time to shuffle up the team chemistry a bit and moved around some locker assignments, saying, "Sometimes a little change is good."

Uh-oh. Talk about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Moving a linebacker between two receivers is not going to cure what ails the Jags on the field. But Del Rio is running out of moves and running out of time.

Jacksonville (3-5) now trails nine teams in the AFC and is facing a brutal second-half schedule that looks unlikely to yield the long winning streak the team would need to make the playoffs.

After finishing second in the league in rushing in 2007 and sixth in scoring, the Jags rank 17th in rushing and 24th in scoring. Fred Taylor, who reached the Pro Bowl with a 5.4 yards per carry average last year, is averaging a paltry 3.3 this season. Maurice Jones-Drew has seen his yards per carry dip from 5.7 as a rookie to 4.6 last year to a pedestrian 4.2 this season.

And the once-stout defense now ranks 23rd overall, getting shredded for 335 yards a game.

So it's no surprise things are boiling over.

Trailing the then-winless Bengals 21-3 last week, linebacker Mike Peterson leapt up from what Del Rio called a "shoestring sack" and flexed his muscles. Del Rio confronted Peterson about the incident during a Wednesday meeting and the ensuing confrontation disintegrated into Peterson being sent home for insubordination. The two repeated the dance on Thursday with Peterson again being sent home. (They were scheduled to meet Friday morning to discuss Peterson's future with the team.)

With the Jags in Detroit on Sunday they could be facing the ignominy of losing to 0-8 and 0-9 teams in consecutive games. If that happens, Del Rio may have to break out his trusty axe.

NFL Week 17

Week 17 action

Vikings 20, Giants 19 -- Recap | Box
Panthers 33, Saints 31 -- Recap | Box
Packers 31, Lions 21 -- Recap | Box
Falcons 31, Rams 27 -- Recap | Box
Texans 31, Bears 24 -- Recap | Box
Patriots 13, Bills 0 -- Recap | Box
Colts 23, Titans 0 -- Recap | Box
Steelers 31, Browns 0 -- Recap | Box
Raiders 31, Bucs 24 -- Recap | Box
Bengals 16, Chiefs 6 -- Recap | Box
Eagles 44, Cowboys 6 -- Recap | Box
Dolphins 24, Jets 17 -- Recap | Box
49ers 27, Redskins 24 -- Recap | Box
Ravens 27, Jaguars 7 -- Recap | Box
Cardinals 34, 'Hawks 24 -- Recap | Box
Chargers 52, Broncos 21 -- Recap | Box


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Analysis

• Marvez: Mangini should blame Favre
• Whitlock: It's all about character

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Video

• NFL on Fox: Scariest playoff team?
• NFL on Fox: NFC playoff preview

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Photos

• NFL Week 17 snapshots
• NFL cheerleaders
• Worst teams ever
• NFL year in photos

Something for Joey

And if things weren't bad enough in Jacksonville, leading receiver Matt Jones has decided to engage Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter in a downright goofy war of words.

Porter, as always, is barking about anything and everything. If the guy was calling out opponents and guaranteeing victories during a 1-15 season last year when he was as invisible as the rest of the defense, you knew he'd be squawking sitting atop the NFL with 11.5 sacks this season.

After cracking on Broncos wide receiver Brandon Marshall for being soft, he turned his motormouth on Jones, wondering aloud about league policy.

"He got caught with cocaine and Matt Jones is still playing football. How does he get away with that? And then you fine people $20,000 for making comments to the media about the refs. The guy got caught with cocaine."

Uh, he's got a point there. But Jones apparently wasn't interested in the veracity of Porter's statement, jumping instead to the always clever "oh yeah, you're gay" comeback.

"I don't even know why he's even thinking about me," Jones said. "I mean, maybe he likes other men and sits up and thinks about stuff. Is Joey Porter the commissioner? Then why would I even worry about it?"

Yes, indeed, why would you worry about it? Why would you worry about it enough even to insinuate that the NFL's sack leader is gay? Smart.

Two months ago who would have thought that Joey Porter could settle a scrap with a Jacksonville player by pointing to the standings?

The Digits of Big D

It may be a pinky causing the most consternation in Dallas, but according to FOX Sports analyst and former Cowboys star Darryl Johnston it's another digit the fans are flashing at their team these days.

"It's unbelievable. The reversal in the atmosphere of the town from the end of September to the end of October is unbelievable," Johnston told the New York Post. "You had people packing their bags for Tampa (site of Super Bowl XLIII) at the end of September and now they're canceling their reservations at the end of October. It's typical rats off the ship."

Terrell Owens acknowledged this week that even before Romo got hurt, the home loss to the Redskins followed by an uninspired win over Cincinnati were harbingers of hard times ahead.

"I think those two games alone kind of let everybody in this locker room know you got to have sort of a self-check like, 'OK, we're probably not as good as we think we are, or probably not as good as hyped,"' he said.

When Tony Romo returns for the rematch with the 'Skins after the Cowboys' bye week, he'll have his first opportunity to throw to his shiny new target, 6-foot-3, 211-pound Roy E. Williams. Dallas better hope Williams provides more with Romo under center. If he doesn't improve on the paltry contribution he's made so far (3 catches, 38 yards), draft day is going to be pretty painful in '09 when the Cowboys watch the Lions use their first, third and sixth picks (Detroit also got a seventh-rounder in 2010).

Hall and Goats

DeAngelo Hall must have figured his days in Oakland were numbered when Al Davis cited his signing as one of Lane Kiffin's many mistakes. By dumping Hall the Raiders get out from under $62M of the $70M they signed him for. Still, $8M for a half season of getting beaten like a dusty rug ain't bad. Since Javon Walker was also mentioned in Davis's firing tirade, coach Tom Cable felt obliged to mention that the wide receiver's job is safe. (Until, that is, Davis gets wind of the fact that Walker has 13 catches this season.)

Another reason Davis gave for Kiffin's termination was his reluctance to draft JaMarcus Russell. Yes, the JaMarcus Russell who went 6-for-19 in a shutout loss to the Falcons last week. The JaMarcus Russell who has completed 48.6 percent of his passes this season. The JaMarcus Russell who has guided the Raiders to nine offensive touchdowns this season, one fewer than LenDale White. Maybe Kiffin understood that being able to throw the ball 60 yards from your knees would rarely be helpful in an NFL game.

Whoever goes next, his ex-Raider teammates will no doubt watch wistfully as he exits to freedom.

Quinn-tessential

The Browns may be 3-6 and headed nowhere in the AFC, but suddenly there's a ray of light breaking through their cloudy season.

In the season's first half Cleveland was doomed by shaky quarterback play and overmatched corners. With Brady Quinn's long-awaited coming out party the team appears to have solved one of those problems, even as the other becomes a bigger, brighter source of franchise embarrassment.

Quinn went 23-for-35 for 239 yards with two touchdowns and no picks in his first-ever start. But the Browns lost as Jay Cutler torched them for 447 yards and three fourth-quarter touchdowns.

This means Derek Anderson's days in Cleveland are numbered since he makes way too much money to hold a clipboard. Anderson is just hoping he can make it out of town before contracting one of the team's league-leading staph infections.