Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Indianapolis Colts: Friday Fact or Fiction

Chris Ivory and T.J. Yeldon will combine for 100+ yards rushing: FICTION

The Jacksonville Jaguars have accumulated a paltry 165 rushing yards as a team over the first 3 weeks. That’s less than TWENTY individual running backs in that stretch, including such traditional luminaries Spencer Ware and Christine Michael. General manager David Caldwell signed Chris Ivory to a sizeable deal this offseason with the intent of giving the Jaguars one of the more intriguing backfield duos in the league. Unfortunately, the Jaguars have been one of the worst run blocking teams in the NFL so far and it’s reflected in their statistics.

Ivory finally made it back to the field last week after an undisclosed injury delayed his Jaguars debut, but he was largely ineffective. In what seems like an odd decision, the Jaguars have deployed Ivory in a number of stretch and zone runs. Ivory is a physical, bruising back who is at his best going north and south, building momentum as he goes along. Tasking him with lateral runs is not the best way to use him so I expect them to get rid of most of those plays this week.

T.J. Yeldon had to carry the load over the first two weeks with little to no success, but he did have a big game (100+ yards) in London last week.

So will the Jaguar running backs get into a groove this week against a less than stellar Colts defense?

Nah.

The Colts may not have a great defense, but they are quite competent at stopping the run (95.7 yards per game), and they get back their best defensive player this week in Henry Anderson. So even if the Jacksonville offensive line is back at full strength with Kelvin Beachum and Brandon Linder, there’s little reason to think the Jaguars will be able to establish the run. Especially if the next guy we’re going to talk about isn’t making plays on a consistent basis…