Saturday Walkthrough: Jacksonville Jaguars
Studying X’s & O’s for a scouting report on the upcoming Broncos game
The Denver Broncos are set up to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars in a Week 2 matchup, I studied the Jaguars to see what we could expect to see Sunday.
Jaguars Defense
The Jaguars’ defense was tough to study, they only have one game of tape and a first time NFL defensive coordinator calling the plays. Joe Cullen was hired as the defensive coordinator after Urban Meyer took the head coaching job. Cullen had been known for being a longtime defensive line coach, most notably for the Baltimore Ravens under Wink Martindale from 2016 through 2020.
In Week 1 against the Houston Texans, the two most called coverages were Cover 1 and Cover 3. Often when lined up pre-snap in a 1 high MOFC shell, they would roll the dropping safety to the strong side of the Texans’ formation.
In the clip above, the Texans motion their Y from a stack formation out wide to an inside position three yards off the ball. Andrew Wingard (#42), the safety lined up high to the strength of the formation rotates down to a curl flat. Rayshawn Jenkins (#2), the safety lined up over the 5T rotates to the deep 1/3 zone.
An effective way to counter this is to hi/lo read the hook defender opposite the safety rotation (in the clip that LB had the RB in man in that specific coverage).
An issue the Jaguars had last Sunday on defense was consistent and timely pressure. They rely on exotic fronts and LB’s mugging the A-gaps to manipulate the offensive line and the quarterback into making a wrong protection call, sometimes running a stunt or game into the dropping LB’s vacated gap, similar to a defense Denver faced a week ago in the Giants.
Denver should look to attack safety Andrew Wingard (#42). When in single high, Wingard is always the low safety looking to fit the run or drop to a hook or curl flat. He aggressively played the run against the Texans and often caught himself biting too hard on anything the Texans used to manipulate the coverage. Whether it be motion or play action, Wingard played it aggressively. Play action or a hard run action with a route running into his vacated zone could create some big plays for the Broncos offense.
Jaguars Offense
The Jaguars offense is led by Darrell Bevell, who is now designing an offense for his 4th NFL team as an offensive coordinator, most recently with the Detroit Lions. Last year, the Lions ranked 20th in EPA/play (0.014), 18th in EPA/dropback (0.103) and 31st in EPA/rush (-0.156).
Bevell has often talked about fitting his scheme to his players, and not the players to his scheme. If he has a weapon on offense, he is going to find a creative and effective way to use him.
“We are always trying to tailor the offense to the strengths of those players, so the different types of players we have will enable us to do different things, the subtle changes you are talking about, just to try to accentuate and get the ball to our best players.”
He definitely has one of those in Laviska Shenault, who is poised for a big role in that offense. Shenault had 8 total touches (one rushing attempt) for 59 yards. Bevell made a point to get the ball in his hands in space.
This is just one example, Bevell comes out in a 12 personnel YY formation with Shenault in a tight split. To the defense it looks like inside zone with the Y blocking across the formation accompanied by a jet motion from Shenault. A nice wrinkle on this play is the center taking a step to the next level to the backside of the play, then turning to block the third level defender on the frontside.
When running the ball, the Jaguars are mainly an inside zone team with some power mixed in. Both running backs, Robinson & Hyde both played well in terms of bouncing the run a different direction when needed, they found success on the outside of the defense and Bevell opted to leave corners unblocked forcing them to make a play in the run game.
Now of course, when talking about the potential Jaguars offense at some point you have to mention the first overall pick and the reason Head Coach Urban Meyer took the job, Trevor Lawrence. Raw stats don’t back it up, but I personally think Trevor Lawrence sneakily had the best opening day for any rookie quarterback. He consistently showed flashes of his pure arm talent and looked like a veteran when maneuvering the pocket.
This throw is one of many that caught my eye. Off the outside zone action, Lawrence places the ball over the field 1/3 defender who had to respect the threat of Lawrence running the ball (although he probably should have gotten a bit more depth). Mechanically, Lawrence did a good job of squaring himself to the target and realigning himself to the throw.
Another area Lawrence impressed me was his understanding of defender leverage and ball placement. In the clip above, he uses the defenders leverage and momentum against him while he was playing underneath the throwing lane. Lawrence places the ball on the outside shoulder of the target and throws it low so the receiver is the only one who has the opportunity to make a play on the ball. Ultimately, the receiver drops it but that doesn’t take anything away from the impressive nature of the throw.
Schematically, Darrell Bevell put emphasis on the quick game. Lots of west coast staples such as slants, hitches, hooks etc. When targeting the intermediate part of the field, he accompanied his concepts with play action to draw the linebackers away from the throw. This Sunday, I’d expect the Jaguars to have some long drives throwing to the short part of the field that the ever so popular split safety coverages allow to be open in the Fangio defense.
Keys To The Game
Consistent 4 Man Pressure
As said above, Bevell and Lawrence have no problem taking what the defense gives them, to combat this you have to speed up the process.
Vertically Stretch The Field
Defensively, Jacksonville had a tough time defending when outside receivers vertically stretched the 1/3 corners. Expect some of Shurmur’s staple concepts like Yankee to make appearances early and often.
Effectively Control The Box
Don’t hate me for this, but Shurmur should look to dictate the box count through personnel and formation to control his own fate when running the ball. Look for lots of 12 personnel Sunday especially with the loss of Jerry Jeudy.