Jaguars Defensive Coordinator Search: Pros and Cons of Ryan Nielsen
The Jacksonville Jaguars are looking for a new direction on defense.
After two years of Mike Caldwell leading the Jaguars' defense, head coach Doug Pederson fired Caldwell and seven other defensive assistants a little over 24 hours after the Jaguars' season had ended.
So with the search for a new coordinator on and a wide net already cast by the Jaguars, we are going down the road of weighing what each coordinator would potentially bring to the table.
Next up: Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen.
Nielsen is likely set to be one of the hottest coordinator names on the market once the dust settles during the hiring cycle. Nielsen, 44, just finished his first year with the Falcons as defensive coordinator, with the Falcons finishing No. 18 in points allowed, No. 12 in EPA/Play, No. 5 in success rate, and No. 1 in rushing EPA/Play.
But what would a Nielsen pairing with the Jaguars look like? We break it down below.
Pros
There is no question the Atlanta Falcons' defense improved by leaps and bounds under Nielsen in his first year running a defense. Using data from Sumer Sports, you can see below that the Falcons' defense was a good bit better in nearly every important and sustainable metric in 2023 than they were in 2022.
| Year | EPA/Play | PPG | Success % | EPA/Pass | EPA/Rush | Completion % | Sack % | INT % | Takeaways | Points Per Drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | 0.07 | 22.7 | 48.4% | 0.13 | -0.01 | 66.5% | 3.5% | 1.7% | 17 | 2.27 |
2023 | -0.07 | 21.9 | 39.9% | -0.04 | -0.21 | 61.5% | 5.9% | 1.4% | 16 | 1.86 |
Jax 2023 | -0.03 | 21.8 | 43.1% | -0.05 | -0.06 | 65.5% | 5.1% | 2.5% | 27 | 1.83 |
A lot of the Falcons' success on defense in 2023 can be attributed to their free-agency spending, but it is worth noting that Nielsen is the one who put it all together. He got a terrific season out of the Falcons' secondary, and his expertise coaching defensive lines has been well-documented.
The Jaguars' front struggled down the stretch in 2023, especially the defensive line. The Jaguars poured extensive resources into their line, but the only players to meet the investments in 2023 were outside linebackers Josh Allen and Travon Walker.
Considering how well Atlanta played the run in 2023, and Nielsen's background as a defensive line guru, it stands to reason that he could get the Jaguars' defensive front back to playing like they need to.
“Stop the run, and stop it in a light box, which is impressive if you don’t need to allocate resources to stop the run, if you can do that then you are playing pretty good run defense,” Nielsen said last year in regards to his philosophy, per ESPN. “Attack, in everything that we’re going to do, we’re going to attack, and that’s in all phases of the defense, attack at every position.”
And while Nielsen comes from a 4-3 multiple front coaching tree, he used a variety of fronts with Atlanta, suggesting that he is able to mold his scheme to the roster and not the other way around.
Cons
There are few marks against Nielsen's candidacy. One of them could be the fact that he comes from an extensive man-coverage background. We covered in Wink Martindale's profile that the Jaguars have been an extensively zone-heavy team over the last several seasons, and their investments in the back seven reflect this.
With Nielsen, the question would be asked whether he could either transform his scheme (No. 1 in man coverage rate, No. 30 in zone coverage rate) or if the Jaguars' secondary could transform to fit what he runs. The Jaguars' secondary has short- and long-term questions to answer in the secondary regardless of their hire, but it could be exemplified in this kind of scheme.
Then there is the fact that Nielsen doesn't have as much experience as some of the other candidates. Candidates like Martindale, Shane Bowen, and Marquand Manuel have run the show on defense for longer than Nielsen has. This shouldn't matter as much, but it is a fact that he isn't among the most experienced candidates.
