The Jacksonville Jaguars were 4-3 heading into their BYE. All things considered, that's a solid record when you take into account that they failed to make the playoffs the past two years and have a first-time head coach in Liam Coen.
But as promising as the Jags have looked early in the season, they also have their work cut down. They've been marred by penalties and subpar execution the past seven games. Similarly, Jacksonville isn't getting enough production from a handful of position groups. Coen singled one out in his first media availability session following the BYE.
The Jaguars need more from their defensive tackles
Liam Coen had an exchange with the media after the team's BYE and said that he expects more from the defensive tackles, noting that the coaching staff looked for ways to get more out of the group.
"You know, we need it, we've looked at, okay, how do we help them on early downs, create more of an edge and get some favorable matchups," Coen told the media when asked if he needed more from the defensive tackles (12:27 mark). We've looked at in the known passing situations where we put in these guys and how can we continue, or how we can put them in better positions to be successful and get more ops on the quarterback. Also, those guys have got to continue to do it on their own as well. Right? If you're going to rush with some four, we got to go win."
Coen continued, "And so we're going to make an emphasis of it and continue to coach the heck out of it. But we did do a little bit of think tanking as a staff over the week, on how we can do that, and creating our angles and matchups, and also being able to in-base defense, how are we moving some of these pieces around in order to give us favorable matchups on who we think we can win on, versus the O-Line."
Currently, Arik Armstead is the team's best defensive tackle. He leads all Jaguars defenders with 3.5 sacks. Similarly, his 21 total pressures are the second most. On the other hand, sophomore Maason Smith and DaVon Hamilton have left a bit to be desired. The former has mostly played on passing downs, and the latter has been solid but not much else. The duo has logged 13 sacks and no sacks thus far.
The Jaguars also need more from Josh Hines-Allen and the pass rush
While it's true that the Jaguars need more from the defensive tackle position, Josh Hines-Allen and the rest of the pass rush must also step up. The former Kentucky Wildcat has posted a team-best 33 total pressures but has yet to register a sack.
Sure, sacks aren't the only way to measure a pass rusher's success or lack thereof, but the best ones routinely have 10 or more on a yearly basis. That said, Hines-Allen isn't the only Jacksonville defensive end who hasn't had a huge impact this season. Travon Walker had two sacks before he suffered a wrist injury. Although he returned for Week 7, he's wearing to have a cast. Compounding the issue is that rotational pieces Emmanuel Ogbah and Dawuane Smoot haven't done much of note this season.
Barring a trade, the Jaguars will expect their current defensive front to step up. Working in their favor is that they had time to group and look for ways to be more productive. They'll next get a chance to show they indeed improved when they face the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 9.