Potential Areas of Regression, Positive or Negative, For the Jaguars in 2020
Football is a unique sport in that it offers a small sample size. The three other major American sports - basketball, baseball and hockey - all play over 80 regular season games, while the NFL plays just 16 regular season games.
Consequently, NFL teams can paint a false picture of themselves as a result of outlier performances over the course of the relatively short season. For example, the 2019 Green Bay Packers had the league’s second-best record at 13-3, but the team ranked ninth in point differential and had an unsustainable 8-1 record in one-score games. Green Bay was a good team, but not as good as 13-3 might suggest, as evidenced by its 2020 Vegas projection of just 9 wins.
Another example is the 2017 Jaguars, which advanced to the AFC Championship behind a historically dominant defense that ranked second in both turnovers and sacks. As we know, defense is extremely volatile- so it shouldn’t have been surprising when Jacksonville’s defense fell back to earth the following season and the team returned to a sub-.500 record after six straight seasons of double-digit loss seasons prior to 2017.
To summarize, it is very unlikely for a team to continue performing at an exceptionally good or bad rate over a large, multi-season sample size of more than just 16 games. Here is a chart showing areas of regression that teams may see a change in next season. (Red cells indicate negative regression looming; green cells indicate positive regression looming.)
As shown by the chart above, Jacksonville ranks fairly middle-of-the-pack in terms of forthcoming regression, with slightly more impending positive regression than negative regression.
Last season the Jaguars won six games, 23rd in the league. It ranked 23rd in Estimated Wins (projected using certain Football Outsiders efficiency metrics) and 26th in Pythagorean Wins (projected solely using point differential). This means that Jacksonville won about as many games as it should have, and didn’t significantly overperform (e.g., Green Bay) or underperform (e.g., Dallas) in terms of its win-loss record based on how well the team actually played.
The following is an examination of specific regression factors that Jacksonville could see significant turnover in next season.
Strength of Schedule
Jacksonville has a fairly kind schedule in 2020. After facing the ninth-easiest schedule last season (in terms of opponent’s total efficiency, per Sharp Football Stats), the Jaguars will face the 11th-easiest schedule this season. Interestingly, Jacksonville is projected to face the easiest schedule in the league in its first eight games (Weeks 1-9) but the second-toughest schedule in its last eight games (Weeks 10-17).
So, Jacksonville may not see major schedule regression from 2019 to 2020, but it’s very possible that the Jaguars could have a strong start to 2020 and regress/decline over the second half of the season.
It’s worth noting that Gardner Minshew faced the easiest schedule of opposing pass defenses in his 12 starts last season (per Sharp Football Stats), but fortunately the Jaguars are scheduled to face the fourth-easiest such schedule in 2020. Jacksonville will also face the fifth-easiest schedule of opposing run defenses this year after facing the 12th-easiest such schedule in 2019, which should benefit Leonard Fournette and company.
Injuries
Football Outsiders ranked the Jaguars 29th in “adjusted games lost” last season, meaning it had the fourth-most injured roster in the league. Jacksonville ranked top-10 in offensive line, running back and defensive back health, but bottom-10 in quarterback, tight end and linebacker health.
Its tight end room was actually the unhealthiest that Football Outsiders has ever graded (since 2001). This undoubtedly contributed to Jacksonville’s tight ends ranking 25th in receptions last season, as no Jaguars tight end caught more than 14 passes. The team ironically signed Tyler Eifert this offseason, who has been infamously unhealthy for the past several years, but the tight end unit will almost certainly have a bigger impact this year for Minshew and the rest of the offense.
Like many factors in the game of football, injuries are difficult to predict. But the Jaguars should expect to have better injury luck in 2020, especially considering it ranked 28th in adjusted games lost in 2018. Even a team with an awful training staff would be unlikely to be a bottom-five injured team for three straight seasons.
Field Goals
The one area of potential regression that Jacksonville performed well in last season was field goal luck. In fact, the Jaguars ranked first in this metric.
Jacksonville ranked so highly mostly because of kicker Josh Lambo’s excellent season. Lambo converted the highest percentage of field goals in the league last year, hitting 32 of 33 (97%). Lambo has now hit 95% of kicks in his Jacksonville career (a franchise record) after hitting 81% in San Diego for two seasons.
Lambo is great, but will probably slightly regress next season, especially considering just 34% of his kicks were from 40-plus yards compared to the league average of 48%. Another factor is the rate at which Jacksonville’s opponents made field goals- which was 81%, just 18th-best in the league.
Assuming Lambo marginally declines and Jacksonville’s opponents marginally improve, the Jaguars are likely to regress in field goal luck in 2020 after ranking first in 2019. This is notable because Jacksonville ranks 31st in fourth-down aggressiveness since Doug Marrone became head coach in 2017, so Jacksonville relies on field goals to score points more than the majority of teams.
Fumbles
Fumble recovery rate is another statistic that has more luck involved than one may think. Players obviously must put in effort to recover fumbles, but more often than not, players simply end up in the right place at the right time when the odd-shaped ball bounces around the turf.
Last season the Jaguars recovered nine of 21 fumbles on both offense and defense (18 of 42 fumbles total). It ranked 30th in fumble recovery over expectation, indicating that the team had several unlucky bounces.
The unlucky bounces occurred most often at the hands of Minshew. He had 13 fumbles, tied for fourth-most in the league, only one of which was recovered by the Jaguars.
Fortunately, Minshew should have a better handle in his second season. Since 2000, there has been 21 rookie quarterbacks who fumbled 10-plus times as a rookie, and only four fumbled 10-plus times in their sophomore season. With this in mind, and Jacksonville’s poor 2019 ranking in fumble luck, it’s fair to assume that the Jaguars will be more fortunate in 2020- which is significant considering the importance that the turnover battle has on winning individual games.
Penalties
As Jaguars fans are well aware, penalties can be flawed (see: Jack, Myles). Referees are human, and they can be biased by factors like home-field advantage, coach/player preferences, etc. whether they know it or not. But while this means that teams shouldn’t expect a perfect penalty margin in which it receives the exact same amount of flags as its opponents throughout the season, it can be concerning when a team has an extreme margin.
Jacksonville led the league with 159 total penalties (including offsetting), 75 offensive penalties and 27 special teams penalties last season per Football Outsiders. Its -30 penalty margin was better only than the Raiders (-37). That is an extreme margin.
The Jaguars offensive line was the biggest detriment, as Jawaan Taylor, Brandon Linder and Cam Robinson ranked top-10 among all offensive linemen in flags with double-digit penalties each. Taylor had a strong rookie season but ranked third in penalties and second in penalty yards in the league.
Typically, teams with significant penalty margins can expect that margin to somewhat regress back to the mean the following season. Unfortunately for the Jaguars, poor coaching may prohibit that regression. Jacksonville also had a -29 penalty margin in 2018, and the defense was among the worst tackling teams in the league last season, which indicates that the roster is undisciplined (not to mention young/inexperienced) and may not necessarily see a dramatic change in penalty margin in 2020.
Third Down Offense
The Jaguars converted 34.6% of its third downs last season, which ranked 26th according to Team Rankings. The team ranked 12th in 2018 and 19th in 2017, so it should theoretically improve in 2020 since third down performance is fairly inconsistent from year-to-year.
Whether or not that happens may depend on the performance of Leonard Fournette. Jacksonville ranked 31st in yards to go on third downs last season, largely because of Fournette. He had a 40% success rate on first and second down, which ranked 38th among 39 running backs with 100-plus carries per Sharp Football Stats. On the other hand, Minshew had a 52% success rate on early downs, which ranked 14th among 32 quarterbacks with 150-plus passes.
The split is even more dramatic on first-half first downs. On such plays, Fournette had a 25% success rate (dead last) and Minshew had a 63% success rate (seventh-best). Despite these differences, offensive coordinator John DeFilippo ran on 52% of early downs in neutral situations, just above league average.
Jacksonville ended up having an average of 8.0 yards to go on third down as a result of so many unsuccessful early-down runs. The Jaguars also ranked last with 10.3 yards to go on first down- likely due to the team leading the league in offensive penalties- which certainly didn’t help.
It’s worth noting that Jacksonville faced the most difficult schedule of third down defenses last season. Unfortunately, the Jaguars are projected to play the hardest such schedule again in 2020.
Early down success rate is a vastly underrated factor for winning games. If Jacksonville even slightly improves its early-down play-calling and rushing success and ends up facing a marginally easier schedule, it should find itself with more manageable third downs and consequently a higher third down conversion rate.
Red Zone Offense
The Jaguars offense also struggled in the red zone last season, as only 40.4% of its red zone trips resulted in a touchdown (31st in the league per Team Rankings). Fournette didn’t help the Jaguars in this area either: he ranked fifth in red zone carries but 54th in yards per attempt, 56th in touchdown rate and 58th in success rate among 58 eligible running backs according to Sharp Football Stats.
On early down red zone plays, the team had a 32% success rate (easily league-worst), which resulted in an average of 6.4 yards to go on third down (third-worst). And as mentioned previously, Marrone is unaggressive in terms of fourth down decision-making, so the team opted to kick field goals often. Jacksonville ended up ranking second in red zone field goals but 30th in red zone touchdowns and 27th in total red zone points scored last season.
Fortunately for the Jaguars, red zone performance is also typically inconsistent from year-to-year. And like on third downs, if Jacksonville’s play calling and rushing success improves, it’s even more likely that the team will find more success in 2020 and put more points on the board.
In conclusion, there are several areas of regression which the Jaguars could see a significant change in 2020. These variables aren’t a certainty to change, but that’s sort of the point. Each one, and the game of football overall, can be heavily influenced by chance, especially in a small sample size of 16 regular season games.
At the end of the day, Gardner Minshew’s performance will ultimately be the largest factor of Jacksonville’s overall success in 2020. But these metrics are important to recognize, as they could easily influence the outcome of a single game or string of games over the course of the upcoming season.
