Jaguars HC Doug Pederson warned everyone this wasn’t an overnight fix

The Jacksonville Jaguars were riding high after beating the Indianapolis Colts and the Los Angeles Chargers in consecutive weeks. However, they fell back to earth after experiencing back-to-back losses. The Jags aren’t hitting the panic button though and Doug Pederson talked about the current state of the team when he met with the local media Monday.

Pederson told the media he doesn’t think the loss to the Houston Texans represents a step backward.

“I still think we’re where we need to be”, Pederson said. “It’s not perfect. We could easily be the other way around when you look at the three losses. I’m gonna keep saying this to the team, it’s about what we do, it’s self-inflicted. You look at the third downs in the game, the defense should be off the field on a couple of those and we weren’t. Costly turnover and deep in the red zone cost us points, penalties. Those are all things we can control and it’s going to be that mindset as we go, it’s how we handle those issues”.

The Jaguars are currently 2-3 and one win away from tying last year’s totals. They already have one more win than they had in 2020, so you can’t say they’ve underperformed, especially when you take into account that they have won more than six games in a season just once since 2008. Here’s Pederson’s Monday exchange with the media.

Jaguars HC Doug Pederson never offered magic-wand solutions

Back when Urban Meyer was the head coach of the Jaguars, he said it would only take him one year to turn things around. However, his tenure was an unmitigated disaster, and was let go less than 12 months after getting the job. Conversely, Pederson said from the get-go that this wasn’t going to be an overnight fix.

Looking back, Pederson was aware he was facing an uphill battle to fully turn the Jaguars around, so it’s a good thing he didn’t offer any promises and put extra pressure on his shoulders. It’s also worth noting that Pederson doesn’t come across as the kind of person that comes up with excuses when the team fails to deliver.

All things considered, Pederson has the Jags trending in the right direction and he can’t be fully assessed until the end of the season. Just like it was too early to anoint him as the coach of the year after back-to-back wins, you can’t make him walk the plank after two straight losses. The sample is simply too small to come up with any meaningful conclusions.

If the Jags start winning and Trevor Lawrence once again shows improvement, nobody will question Pederson. On the other hand, more losses will bring more scrutiny and that’s perfectly fine. Just keep in mind that it might take more than one year for Jacksonville to become a winning team. Pederson knew it when he took the job.