Jaguars Bye Week Stock Report: Which Players Does the Team Need to Take a Leap?

While we know this may sound like a broken record at this point, the 1-6 Jacksonville Jaguars are facing a grim picture during their Week 8 bye. With that in mind, the team has nine more games to galvanize and salvage their season.

If the Jaguars will do that over the next nine games, of course, the Jaguars will need a few players to step up their games and a few players to continue the ascensions they have begun.

With all of this in mind, here is our bye week stock report on which players are building some momentum for the second half of the season.

Stock Down

TE Tyler Eifert

When the Jaguars signed eighth-year tight end and former Pro Bowler Tyler Eifert this offseason, it was hoped the veteran would provide stability at a position Jacksonville has found little production from. Through the first seven games this year, Eifert has played and started in six games and caught 11 passes for 93 yards and a touchdown. With Eifert having trouble establishing himself as a downfield threat, the Jaguars have struggled to find much use in the passing game for Eifert over the first half of the year. He is sixth on the team in targets with 23 but his target to catch ratio is the worst on the team. Second-string tight end James O'Shaughnessy has seen five fewer targets than Eifert this year, but he has caught for more passes, gained 54 more receiving yards and converted one more first down than Eifert. Of all Jaguars with at least 10 targets, Eifert also has the lowest passer rating when targeted on the team (55.2 ).

Overall, there are little signs to suggest that Eifert can produce for the Jaguars to the level that many were perhaps projecting him to before the season began. It hasn't clicked to this point, with the other skill players on the offense and his own backup all proving themselves to be more valuable targets. With that said, Eifer can still turn his season around if he can get healthy. He missed Week 7 with a neck injury, his first missed game this season. If he can stay on the field, perhaps he and Minshew (or whoever is at quarterback) can develop the chemistry he needs to succeed.

DT Taven Bryan

If there was any defender the Jaguars needed to take a big step in their development this year, it was third-year defensive tackle Taven Bryan. Bryan had the public hyping of his coaches and teammates behind him entering the year and the former first-rounder was coming off a solid Year 2 in 2019. But through seven games, the starting three-technique has been mostly invisible against the pass and too inconsistent against the run. According to Sports Info Solutions, Bryan has five pressures this season. This would put Bryan on pace to have roughly between 11-12 pressures if he continues to record the stat at his current rate. Compare to this 2019 when he recorded 21 pressures, and this is a steep drop-off for the veteran.

Bryan's three tackles for loss and 0.5 sacks are pedestrian numbers, though Bryan is recording more tackles for loss at the line of scrimmage than he was at this point last year. With that said, he still struggles to consistently anchor at the point of attack, with struggles against the Detroit Lions and Miami Dolphins as clear examples. When it comes down to it though, the Jaguars could get by with Bryan being an average run defender if he was making an impact against the pass. So far, though, he hasn't. If the Jaguars' defense, which is last in the league in sacks, is going to improve at all in 2020, they will need Bryan to take a leap.

QB Gardner Minshew

With Gardner Minshew reportedly sustaining a thumb injury against the Houston Texans, it is understandable to a degree why his play has fallen off so much over the last month. With that said, the Jaguars will need to see him play better over the final two months of 2020 regardless of the circumstances. It is the only way he can prove he is a potential franchise quarterback, something he has struggled to do this season. Minshew isn't the sole reason Jacksonville has struggled on offense since Week 2, scoring more than 20 points just twice, but he has had a few clear issues show up that he will need to clean up once he is back on the field.

According to Pro Football Reference, Minshew ranks in the bottom-12 among qualifying passers in percentage of on-target throws per pass attempt (76.2%) and bad throw percentage (18.8%), but his supporting cast hasn't been a large reason why. PFR has Minshew with the 8th-lowest dropped pass percentage (3.5%) and middle of the pack in time in the pocket per throw (2.4 seconds) and his percentage of dropbacks pressured on (21.9%) is 13th in the NFL. This isn't good, but he isn't playing behind the worst line in the league. If the Jaguars are going to win more games before 2020 is over, they will need Minshew to clean up his accuracy and effectiveness against pressure, as well as obviously needing to get healthy.

RT Jawaan Taylor

Expected by most to take a big second-year jump and establish himself as one of the NFL's top young rookie offensive tackles, Jawaan Taylor has struggled at times this year. The former second-round pick has allowed more pressures this season than Ravens' left tackle Ronnie Stanley has allowed over the last two years, according to PFF, which is staggering considering the growth he showed over the course of the second half of the season in 2019 as a rookie.

Ronnie Stanley: 29 pressures allowed the last 2 seasons.

Andrew Thomas and Jawan Taylor have both allowed more this season alone pic.twitter.com/lrkGW7MB4f
— PFF (@PFF) October 30, 2020

Sports Info Solutions isn't much kinder to Taylor, having him down for 13 missed blocks in pass protection, tied for the second-most in the league among tackles and tied for the second-most sacks allowed among tackles with seven. Taylor has significantly cut down on his penalty problem, but the young tackle will need to pick up his play over the next nine games.

DE K'Lavon Chaisson

It was a hard decision to put any rookie on this list because this is a year where rookies are expected to struggle out of the gate. This has been the case with Jaguars' first-round pick K'Lavon Chaisson, but he deserves much more time before any generalizations are made about his ability as an NFL defender. With that said, if Jacksonville's league-worst productivity against the pass is going to improve at any point in 2020, Chaisson's development will be key.

According to SIS, Chaisson has the lowest pressure percentage of all defensive ends in the NFL with at least 145 rushing snaps, with the rookie getting pressure on just 3.4 of his pass-rush snaps. Throw in the fact he has just one sack and nine tackles and it has been a quiet season up front for Chaisson as he continues to develop his game. Unfortunately for the Jaguars, they can't afford to wait on his development -- if they are to turn around their season, they will need him to make an impact now.

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