Jacksonville Jaguars Bye Week Report Card: Offensive Line

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The Jacksonville Jaguars enter the bye week at 2-5, a stark contrast from where they’ve been 7 games into recent seasons. While 2-5 would be a discouraging record for most teams, it signals improvement for a team that only won 7 games in the last 2 seasons, and it’s somehow good enough to stay in the hunt in a downright horrific AFC South.

As we slow things down for the bye week, we can take some time to look back and grade out each position group to help piece together how the Jaguars got to this point.

Let’s start with a maybe the one of the more improved position groups on the roster – the offensive line.

Here are each of the overall offensive line statistics after 7 games:

Stats:

19 sacks (21st in the NFL)
38 QB hits (17th in the NFL)
6.9% adjusted sack rate according to Football Outsiders (21st in the NFL)
Ranked 18th offensive line in the NFL by Pro Football Focus

The Jacksonville Jaguars had the worst pass protecting line in the NFL in 2014 (see 71 sacks, the most allowed in the NFL by 13), so they had nowhere to go but up in 2015. They’ve done just that, propelled by some outside help in the form of right tackle Jermey Parnell and center Stefen Wisniewski. Wiz hasn’t been a massive upgrade from Luke Bowanko last year in terms of performance on the field, but he’s stabilized the most cerebral position on the offensive line and played well enough to not be a liability. Parnell on the other hand has provided a significant improvement at right tackle, particularly as a mauling run blocker. Outside of a few penalties and a sack or two, Parnell has been mistake free this year and looks like a building block on the line.

Luke Joeckel has been a popular player to criticize, but he’s been fine this year. Not great, but he certainly isn’t the disaster some national analysts would lead you to believe and he has improved as the season has gone on. He still needs to work on a handful of things, but he’s far from the biggest spot of concern along the offensive line.

That distinction goes to Zane Beadles who probably would have been benched already if Brandon Linder didn’t suffer a season ending injury. Beadles has been horrific as a pass blocker and is rarely providing a push in the running game. A.J. Cann has come in at right guard for Linder and shown he is already a more effective guard than Beadles. There’s a decent chance we see Tyler Shatley at left guard after the bye.

Bye Week Grades: Offensive Line – C-plus

Luke Joeckel – C-plus
Zane Beadles – D-minus
Stefen Wisniewski – C-plus
Brandon Linder – B
A.J. Cann – B-minus
Jermey Parnell – B

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