Leonard Fournette must take over the Jaguars offense

Can Leonard Fournette become the centerpiece of the Jaguars offense on Sunday with the absence of Nick Foles at quarterback?

Leonard Fournette’s 2019 debut was respectable. The third-year running back looked more effective in the Jaguars offense, gaining 66 yards on 13 carries. He did not score a touchdown and had a costly fumble on the team’s opening drive of the second half which could have led to points and change the complexity of a 23-13 game at the time.

For Fournette, it is the start of what must be a better season in 2019. Now, with the loss of Nick Foles at quarterback and rookie Gardner Minshew taking over the reins of the offense, the running game will be even more important to the success of this team. The Jaguars gained over 400 yards on Sunday.

The running game must continue to churn out yards and control the clock this weekend when Jacksonville travels to Houston to face the Texans. Head coach Doug Marrone said after the 40-26 loss that he was pleased with Fournette’s afternoon. We as fans want to hear more of that and less of the issues that have plagued him the past two seasons.

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"“I was happy with Leonard.  He had some good runs, good tough runs, almost broke a couple of them.  I think, like you said, when you can give him the amount of carries, eventually some of those runs are going to come out,” Marrone explained.“I thought he got off to a good start as far as running the football and we’ll see where it goes.  We’ll see what we have to do.  Obviously, we’ll do whatever we’ll have to do to win football games.”"

John DeFilippo, the Jaguars new offensive coordinator said when he met with the media last week he expected Fournette to play a lot of football on Sunday. I’m curious whether the game plan changed a bit when Foles went down with the broken clavicle. The Jaguars were already in a hole against the Chiefs and needed to move the ball faster down the field.

Will Sunday look more balanced on offense and will Fournette have more touches to ease the workload of a rookie quarterback starting his first game on the road against a division rival?

Fournette was also an integral part of the team’s passing game, catching four balls for 28 yards. We should expect to see more of the same kind of production where the former LSU stars gets a heavy dose of touches this season.

"“That was our whole goal. That’s what we talked about from OTAs and from day one, really, of, ‘Hey, let’s get this guy in here, and let’s let him a be a three-down back and keep him on the field as much as we can and be a playmaker,’ and all those things,” Marrone said.“So, these are the things that we talked about collectively right here. We’ve talked about that before, so that was our goal to try to get that done.”"