Jacksonville Jaguars Have a ‘Trust’ Issue on Defense
By Luke Sims
The Jacksonville Jaguars have the worst defense in the league, grossly under performing after a promising first year in 2013 under head coach Gus Bradley. Bradley addressed the issue on Monday, highlighting that even if one guy isn’t taking care of his responsibilities then the Jaguars have a trust issue.
"It’s leaning down to where it’s a trust issue. ‘Do I trust that you’re going to be where you need to be? am I going to trust that you understand your responsibilities?’ A little bit of that I think is an issue.There were some just blown assignments, things I don’t know where they came from. Those things seem to come up repeatedly with some guys. We need to find what exactly went wrong."
There’s a lot going on that’s going wrong for the Jacksonville Jaguars, unfortunately. The defense struggles to make tackles and part of that is because there are missed assignments and poor positioning by the players. As great as it is to see Paul Posluszny mop up tackles for a full season (and he’s mighty fine at that) if the Jaguars are able to man their spots better then he wouldn’t have to.
The guys behind the front four are really the primary problem. While the defensive line doesn’t have perfect play, it is playing better than the linebacking corps and the secondary.
Part of the problem is coverage by the linebackers. The Jaguars have an incredibly thin linebacker unit and the players who are starting are not very skilled at covering tight ends, running backs, and the occasional receiver. They need to improve so that the rest of the defense can trust that they have their responsibilities covered and they don’t have to keep one eye on whoever Poz or someone else is covering.
Another major part is the secondary. Starting safety Jonathan Cyprien missed the Washington Redskins game which led to far too many snaps for Chris Prosinski, who is a major liability. Josh Evans filled in pretty well, however. Allan Ball and Dwayne Gratz have been outmatched in 2014, though. They aren’t challenging the receivers like they need to and the Jaguars desperately need receivers to feel that each pass isn’t going to be as simple as closing their fingers around the ball as it speeds at them. Forcing receivers to fight for their catches was a major point of emphasis for the defense last season but hasn’t been replicated so far in 2014.
Gus Bradley has it right. The Jacksonville Jaguars need to be able to trust each other on defense. While I think the play calling could use some work still, if the players are able to mind their responsibilities better then we should see an improved defense. The Jags can only go up from here.