Jaguars quarterback Mark Brunell has thrown more interceptions (four) than TD passes (three).

And with each passing week, what loomed before the season as a possible Super Bowl run seems ever more distant, if not altogether out of reach.

And, hey, you should see what they're saying about the New York Jets.

This other team in turmoil? That would be the Jacksonville Jaguars, who hit the Meadowlands for tonight's Monday Night Football tilt against the Men of Jet with a 3-1 record that never felt shakier. It's as if that season-opening 41-3 rip of the San Francisco 49ers no longer exists.

In the end, the NFL is all about the here and now. In the here and now, the Jacksonville Jaguars are not to be trusted as a deep playoff threat.

"Inconsistency and execution," Jags coach Tom Coughlin said last week, explaining in a nutshell his team's precipitous slide from a much-feared offense to one that slogged its way through a 17-3 victory over Pittsburgh last time out. "All 11 people who are counted on are not performing as well as they can perform. ... It's a different person on a different play that it's taking place. It's not just one or two people. It's everyone."

Make that all 12 people, coach. Over the past couple of weeks, when they weren't taking shots at quarterback Mark Brunell's punchless performances, the dedicated Jacksonville fans have finally begun to vent a little in the direction of Coughlin himself. The coach, after all, has taken over the play-calling, and doesn't that put him in line for a few of the laser beams?

It does, and there is some meat on the bone here. With Coughlin drawing up the X's and O's, the Jags have tumbled down to 13th in total offense and an inexcusable 20th in passing offense.

	“	All 11 people who are counted on are not performing as well as they can perform. ... It's a different person on a different play that it's taking place. It's not just one or two people. It's everyone. ”
		— Tom Coughlin

The bottom third of the league in passing, with Brunell behind center and guys like Jimmy Smith and Keenan McCardell at the wideouts? You practically have to be trying to smother the possibilities that come out of that. But Coughlin, however inadvertently, might be doing just that: Through their first four games, the Jaguars passed on first down less often than all but three teams in the league.

When Brunell threw a killing end-zone interception in the late moments against Tennessee two weeks ago one play after missing an open receiver for a touchdown, he was ripped for the pass that enabled the Titans to hang on for a victory. But Coughlin came under scrutiny, too -- after all, a field goal would have forced overtime in that game. What were the Jags doing going for it all?

"I wonder what I could have done differently," Coughlin said. "But the fact of the matter is, you've got to make the play in that situation."

Said a testy Brunell: "I don't call them, I just run them. If you want information, if you want to talk about the play-calling, I'm not the one to do that."

Is it cold in here or is it us? And the situation wasn't improved much by last week's effort in Pittsburgh, which did yield a victory but put no room between Brunell and his recent struggles.

His work in that game -- just 10 completions in 25 attempts for 85 yards, with a touchdown and an interception -- left Brunell with a quarterback efficiency rating of 70.4 for the season. Over in the Central Time Zone, the former Arena League kid who's quarterbacking the St. Louis Rams, Kurt Warner, is clipping along at 136.0.

But the point isn't that Warner is twice the QB that Brunell is; the point is that it's Brunell whom people practically expect to rack up such gaudy numbers. Instead, the veteran has appeared tentative and unintimidating, and his offense has produced just six touchdowns in four games.

It's hard to know what it will take to get the Jags going, but a game against the 1-3 Jets on the road might not be it. Whatever else New York's travails might mean, they haven't signaled the demise of the defense, and whatever Brunell and his offensive teammates get tonight, they'll likely have to earn. No freebies in store.

"We'll get this going," Brunell told Jacksonville reporters the other day. "It's just a lot of little things."

They add up, even if they cause you to do a double-take when you see the statistical proof. Aren't the Jaguars supposed to be a Super Bowl contender?

Answer: In the here and now, not without a fight.

Mark Kreidler is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, which has a web site at http://www.sacbee.com/. During the 1999 NFL season, he will write a weekly column for ESPN.com, focusing on the Monday Night Football matchup.