Friday Night Logue: Adapt To Survive
There were little-to-no surprises about the Jacksonville Jaguars’ defense through the beginning of the season. As expected, defensive coordinator Joe Cullen adopted Baltimore’s aggressive blitzing and man coverage scheme -- but with a far less talented secondary/overall roster, Jacksonville’s pass defense struggled mightily out of the gate.
Here’s what I wrote following week 5’s 37-19 loss to the Titans:
“The Jaguars run coverages with the middle of the field closed (Cover 1 Man or Cover 3 Zone) at the third-highest rate in the league. Opponents know what to expect, and with a middling pass rush and undermanned secondary, it’ll be easy for passing offenses to continue to succeed against Cullen’s unit.
Whether it’s being even more aggressive up front (Jacksonville tends to only rush five on its blitzes) or mixing up coverages on the backend, Cullen may need to adapt his passing defense to at least be less predictive in order to stop opposing quarterbacks, because the current roster just isn’t as talented as it needs to be to execute Cullen’s desired scheme on a consistent basis.”
Fast forward to Urban Meyer’s postgame comments following week 9’s 9-6 win over the Bills:
“We transitioned a little bit, and Joe Cullen and his staff did a really good job. We really believe we were going to be a man coverage team and we had to adapt, and we now are a pretty good zone coverage team because of the hard work our coaches and players put in. A lot of that was zone coverage today.”
Jacksonville’s shift to more zone began in London against the Dolphins and has really started to emerge since the bye week, but Sunday was the most glaring display of the Jaguars’ restyled defense.
The Jaguars have decreased its usage of man coverage and single-high safety sets in favor of more zone and two-high looks as the season’s progressed. Sports Info Solutions credited Jacksonville for specifically playing Cover 2 against just 34 combined dropbacks prior to week 9 -- last Sunday, the Jaguars played Cover 2 on 19 opposing dropbacks, which was over twice as much as any other coverage type that day.
With more conservative coverage in the back end, Jacksonville allowed just two completions of 15-plus yards to the high-powered Bills offense after ranking dead last in explosive pass play rate allowed heading into the contest (per Sharp Football Stats).
Buffalo’s deep route concepts were largely taken away by Jacksonville’s two deep safeties, which forced Josh Allen to progress through multiple reads and hold onto the ball to make plays -- his average time to throw of 3.12 seconds on Sunday was the second-highest of his season (per Next Gen Stats).
Thanks in part to the scheme switch from Cullen and a sound performance from the secondary, the Jaguars defensive line easily had its best collective performance of the season against a hobbled Bills offensive line, even while remaining disciplined with blitz calls (the Jaguars have routinely rushed four after blitzing heavily to start the year). Cullen sent just eight blitzes on 54 Allen dropbacks but the MVP frontrunner was still pressured on a season-high 44.4% of his dropbacks.
Below is an incompletion montage following the secondary playing zone coverage and the pass rush getting pressure:
Here are each of Jacksonville’s four sacks, featuring Taven Bryan’s “campfire” celebration:
And for good measure here are both of Jacksonville’s interceptions, which matched how many the team had going into the game:
For the first time all season, both the front and back ends of Jacksonville’s pass defense played consistently well for all four quarters -- and it remained borderline dominant against the run, as it allowed just 22 yards on nine non-quarterback rushes.
Cullen mentioned that nothing from Sunday’s game is new material, as the team has run the same zone coverages since training camp. But it is extremely difficult to simply decide midseason to change a major scheme component, especially given the first-year status of many coaches and players in Jacksonville and the lack of roster talent.
This wasn’t a normal upset, in which the better team is unrested or dealing with significant injuries or had horrendous luck in the turnover department. The Jaguars’ defense won this game fair and square, and while it’s still just one strong performance in a sea of forgetful ones, Sunday’s victory was a significant shift towards a brighter future of Jacksonville football.
Other Thoughts
- It’s midseason awards szn! Here are my Jaguars-only picks for every NFL awards category.
MVP: RB James Robinson
OPOY: LG Andrew Norwell
DPOY: CB Shaquill Griffin
OROY: QB Trevor Lawrence
DROY: CB Tyson Campbell
COY: OC Darrell Bevell
CPOY: OLB Josh Allen
It’s a shame the NFL doesn’t have a most-improved award but shoutout to Dan Arnold, Jamal Agnew, Ben Bartch, Dawuane Smoot, DaVon Hamilton and Andrew Wingard for being solid role players so far this season.
- Rudy Ford played very well on Sunday! He gets major props for moving from special teams to safety to nickel. But now that I’ve said two nice things, I remain pessimistic that the Jaguars have the talent necessary to hide its biggest defensive weakness -- pass coverage over the middle of the field. Nickel and MIKE linebacker are two positions that Jacksonville should look to upgrade this upcoming offseason after it addresses its more pressing roster needs (receiver, pass rusher, offensive line).
- The correct take about Odell Beckham Jr. (and Von Miller) going to Los Angeles is that it is very cool. Watching several generational players all on the same team should make any football fan excited -- the Rams are still a few Super Bowls away before the perspective should begin to shift from fun to not. The past several years have seen the NBA turn into a league of super teams with rising player empowerment -- the NFL will never be very comparable given the differing roster sizes alone, but it seems to be headed towards a similar path as the NBA.
