Jaguars continue to deal with injuries to their offense

Injuries continue to be a focal point of the Jacksonville Jaguars offense as both Jaydon Mickens and Nile Paul were placed on injured reserved Monday.

The list of Jacksonville Jaguars players with injuries continues to grow as the team continues to look for answers to their stagnant offense. It’s nothing new these days at TIAA Bank Field. It’s just something this organization, like all 32 NFL teams, must deal with and find ways to overcome the setbacks.

"“It’s a challenge. Like I said before, just to get better [is a challenge]. Yesterday, [Jaydon] Mickens is out. We will replace him with Rashad Greene Sr,” head coach Doug Marrone said when he addressed the media on Monday.“With Niles Paul, we are going to wait and see and get ourselves ready if we have to make a decision or maybe we might not. Those are the things that are going on there. I think it’s easy to see or easy to say or easy to stand up here and talk about the, ‘Woah is me’ aspect of injuries. I really do. I think when you look around the league, you see a lot of them here and there.”"

The Jaguars announced on Tuesday they had signed tight end Blake Bell to fill Paul’s roster spot.

The loss of key players on offense was magnified on Sunday in the 40-7 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. The running game cannot find a rhythm and misses Leonard Fournette. Josh Walker is a guard playing at left tackle. Jacksonville has lost both Cam Robinson and Josh Wells for the season.

Paul is the second tight end to be placed on IR this season. Austin Seferian-Jenkins suffered a core injury but could return to the team later this year.

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The Jaguars are now 18th in the NFL with 103.3 yards per game rushing. The passing game is averaging 267.7 yards per contest, good for 15th in the league. Being mediocre is not what this coaching staff had envisioned for this offense prior to the start of the season.

With the continual injuries to the offense, the coaching staff must make adjustments like the players on the roster to find common ground. When asked about how his team has handled this situation, losing two games in a row, Marrone said it was something he addressed with the team earlier on Monday.

"“That’s a great question. That is something [we talked about] today. I talked to the team, I told them, ‘I have been on all different sides of this thing.’ [I have been] where you have gone out fast, you have kind of stayed there and you get yourselves into the dance and you go,” he explained. “I have been there where we have started out fast and fizzled. You kick yourself in the butt. I have been there where you are sitting at 2-5 and you wound up winning the division in New York with the Jets.”"

The Jaguars hope they can find momentum and progression this week on offense facing a Houston Texans team that has won three straight games and has a mobile quarterback in Deshaun Watson.

If you are looking ahead, the pundits are already mocking a quarterback to the Jaguars in the 2019 NFL Draft. The thought is Blake Bortles has not made the improvements on offense the organization had hoped and in his fifth season in the league, won’t be more than he already is on this stage.

Ryan Wilson of CBS Sports has the Jaguars taking Drew Lock of Missouri, however, in his analysis, he questions some of the same qualities Lock has as Bortles does right now.

"“Drew Lock is a senior and he checks all the boxes for what organizations look for in an elite-level passer. The problem is that while Lock looks the part — and has all the physical tools — he struggles with consistency,” Wilson wrote. “In his first three games of 2018, he threw 11 touchdowns and just one interception and Missouri jumped out to a 3-0 start. In Lock’s last three games, he’s managed just one touchdown to go along with five picks, and the Tigers are now 3-3.”"

There are issues across the board on offense for this defense. After a day of questioning the defense and its presence in the past two weeks, it is not one side of the football that is to blame. As a whole, this team isn’t playing its best football right now. It’s something Marrone talked about immediately after the game on Sunday and touched on again Monday afternoon.

Next. Will the real Jaguars defense find its rhythm?. dark

"“I’m not going to stand here and say, ‘Hey, everything is fine. We will be OK.’ We are not. But, in saying that, the only way you go ahead and get through this stuff is you’ve got to work harder. You have to put more in… That starts with me first. I am accountable to all of it, Marrone said.”"

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