Jaguars Week 6 Stock Report: Leonard Fournette Shines but Receivers Struggle
Sunday’s performance for the Jacksonville Jaguars was reversed from how things have been all season long. The Jaguars defense finally put together a respectable game, while the Jaguars offense on the other hand struggled.
Minshew Mania ended his streak of four straight great games, the offensive line continued to struggle and the Jaguars continued to Jaguar. We’re going through whose stock is up and whose stock is down following the 13-6 loss to the New Orleans Saints.
Stock up: Leonard Fournette
Fournette racked up 76 yards on the ground and 46 yards through the air, totaling over 100 all purpose yards. However that’s not the best thing that came out of Fournette’s performance.
Fournette has been running hard all season long and that is one of the most refreshing things to see so far this year. He’s still facing stacked boxes - but he still finds a way to fall forward. I’d say that’s the best part of his game by far. He doesn’t take plays for negative yards, he always falls for at least one or two yards.
He has 584 rushing yards on the season, which is already 145 more yards than he had last year. He now has over 770 all purpose yards. Not only is his stock up but his maturity level and his status as a professional is on the rise as well.
Stock down: Gardner Minshew
Don’t take this as me being one of those people coming for Minshew’s head, but he definitely had his worst game of the season thus far. He completed 48 percent of his passes just over 160 yards along with an interception. Oof.
The Saints were the first team that really had a good amount of film to go off of to game plan for Minshew, and it showed.
He was held in the pocket, didn’t have many running lanes, his check downs were taken away and the receivers couldn’t get open.
You kind of felt like this might be bound to happen when the organization gave away literally 35,000 mustaches home crowd. There was a lot of pressure on Minshew to perform against one of the best teams in the league.
Minshew missed the mark on a couple throws, but the communication between him and the receivers seemed to be off throughout the night. He also only had one interception but was close to adding one or two more to his stat sheet.
Stock up: Najee Goode
Goode had his chance to earn a spot on the starting Jacksonville defense, and he made the most out of his opportunities. He racked up six tackles along with a sack (his first on the season).
Goode came in relief of rookie linebacker Quincy Williams, who had a bad showing last week - but Goode put together a good showing. See what I did there? We like to have fun here at JaguarMaven.
One of the biggest knocks on Williams last week was his missed tackles, and this was something Goode didn’t do. He had excellent form and anyone who was in his grasp he managed to take down. Goode should get another start next week.
Stock Down: The Wide Receivers
It may seem unfair for me to put a whole position group in the stock down, but just like Minshew - this was the group's worst performance thus far this season.
The offensive line gave up the sacks, but for the most part Minshew had a good amount of time to throw the ball. He wasn’t getting the ball out of his hands as fast as he has been all season long, that comes down to the receivers. No one could get open against this Saints secondary - the Jaguars simply needed to do a better job.
Dede Westbrook and DJ Chark were the only wide receivers that recorded catches, and combined they had six receptions for 96 yards. You need better numbers than that, plain and simple.
