‘It Starts on Wednesday at Practice’: Jaguars Defense Looking For Fixes Following Colts Loss

Linebacker Foyesade Oluokun was one of many Jaguars defenders that were not pleased with the defensive play on Sunday. 

The unit struggled mightily against the Indianapolis Colts, allowing the Colts passing game to dominate all afternoon and putting pressure on the offense to keep up. It was a performance that left a sour taste in the mouth of the Jaguars defenders, and one they certainly wish they could do over again.

“It’s definitely frustrating, because they were just dinking and dumping it down field,” Oluokun said. 

“When I got into the league, when you see a quarterback doing that, you know it’s going to probably be a longer drive if they execute what they’re supposed to execute.” You got to be able to stand up in the red zone which we didn’t do, I think we’re 3-4 in the red zone. When they were coming out and doing that, we saw that and I think we were good the first two drives, but something to get adjusted to. Especially because they kept on going tempo based on the field, they were keeping the nickel set on the field. They thought they liked it, trying to get us going out of that.”

Third down situations in the second half were another issue that plagued the Jaguars defense all afternoon. The Colts ability to convert on these critical third-down conversions was one of the primary reasons why they escaped with the win. For Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson and the defensive staff, it is up to them to eliminate these mistakes and adjust the defensive gameplan moving forward.

“Well, number one, I still take the fall for the whole thing because I’m responsible for the team,” Pederson said. “You have conversations with the coordinators each week. I have conversations with the team. Everybody needs to know the importance of each game. Each game has its own entity, and there are things that still are kind of showing up in these games that are sort of self-inflicting. 

"It just so happened this week was third downs in the second half, just being able to get off the field defensively, and two DPI’s and a roughing the passer kept drives alive for them. Those are all things we have to eliminate, we have to correct , and I’m a big part of that obviously with the coordinators and the team.”

As for the players, Oluokun noted that the Jaguars do intend to talk about necessary changes to the defensive gameplan to prevent any repeat performances.

“We’ll talk about that in the room,” Oluokun said. “I definitely expect to see tempo at some point in the game moving forward. I think we saw some tempo a little bit earlier in the season, but we’ll be able to have a gameplan for it. 

"Whether we have a certain set of calls in different formations or different personnels that we’re in, I’m sure that’s what we’ll get to. Being able to rattle off some pressures if we need it, or man-to-man, or get into different zones, whatever we need. Everybody just being on the same page and getting that communication out quickly, that’s really all it is to it.”

As a team, the Jaguars players and coaches are all on the same page about the desire to improve and find their way back into the win column. Most importantly, they all have high confidence about flipping the script moving forward.

“I got confidence in the boys, because that’s what everybody is signed up to do,” Oluokun said. 

“Obviously, we got to do it, it’s one thing to sit here and say, ‘I want to fix this and that’, it’s really how we start fixing this and that. Really, it starts on Wednesday at practice, everybody will be on the same page ad really gearing up to win on Sunday. But really, it starts on Wednesday at practice, and everybody knows that. Just trusting that process and it’s really getting out there and doing it.”