Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio, who recently has signed backup quarterbacks like Todd Bouman and Keith Null, added another one today via a successful waivers claim for former Bills quarterback Trent Edwards.
Del Rio spoke about the acquisition with Tim Ryan and Pat Kirwan of Sirius NFL Radio’s Movin’ the Chains.
“We think it gives us an opportunity to add a guy at an important position,” Del Rio said. “We lost a backup. After the San Diego game we lost Luke McCown and we have a younger guy who we think gives us an opportunity to add depth at that position. Todd Bouman is a guy who knows our system and he’s here as our backup right now but to have a guy who has a chance to go forward beyond just next week and the rest of this season, but beyond that as a prospect, it’s a little bit like adding a draft pick and so we’re excited to have him aboard.”
Asked about the amount of time it will take to get Edwards up to speed with the Jacksonville offense, Del Rio said, “It’ll take a little time. I think we anticipate that. We’ll find out how much carryover there is. Typically there is some but we’re counting on there being a little bit of a learning curve. He is a smart kid, he did go to Stanford so we’re thinking the learning curve maybe can be accelerated. But we’ll do our best to get him caught up as quickly as possible.”
But Del Rio doesn’t sound like he’s ready to pull the plug on starter David Garrard. Yet.
"[W]e expect him to bounce back,” Del Rio said. “We need him to bounce back. Obviously, we can’t function as a football team if we’re playing that poorly in particular with our passing game.”
We’ve got a feeling that, once Del Rio believes Edwards is up to speed, Garrard will lose any remaining benefit of the doubt that he currently is enjoying.