Jacksonville Jaguars: Safety Tashaun Gipson eyeing the Pro Bowl

Can Jacksonville Jaguars safety Tashaun Gipson return to the Pro Bowl? He seems to think so.

Overlooked after one poor year to start his Jacksonville Jaguars tenure, Tashaun Gipson thinks he can bounce back. For him, that means getting back to the Pro Bowl, something he hasn’t done since 2014 when he had six interceptions.

Speaking about his role with the 2017 defense to the Florida Times-Union, Gipson said, “With the style I’m allowed to play this year, I don’t see why I won’t be back in the Pro Bowl.” Those are big expectations for a player on a defense that is studded with stars. If Gipson is able to return to his ball-hawking ways, it will be as a result of pushes from his peers as well as his own stellar play.

Not being used the way he wanted turned into a vocal opposition against the Jags coaching staff at he end of the 2016 season. Comparing himself to a “babysitter” at the end of the season, Gipson is looking to get more involved.

That is exactly what Ryan O’Halloran projects in his report on Gipson. Expected to be used in more diverse ways than simply sitting deep in the middle of the field, expect the Jaguars to get creative with Gipson and use his ball skills and athleticism to the team’s advantage.

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For four years under former head coach Gus Bradley, the Jags tried to force players to fit the defensive scheme. Gipson’s addition was a big deal because it was finally thought that the team may have a player who could make plays in that “Seattle South” scheme. It turned out that wasn’t so.

Defensive coordinator Todd Wash is given much more leeway now that he is not under Bradley’s thumb and can use Gipson to do a lot more. While the talk on defense revolves around dominant players like A.J. Bouye, Calais Campbell, and Malik Jackson, it may fall to Gispon and his less well-known peers to step up and cement the new Jags defense as a dominant unit. Having a Pro Bowl free safety would go a long way to doing that.