What Caused the Jaguars' Special Teams Meltdown vs. Texans?

Every NFL head coach believes in one thing, without any disagreement, varying opinions, or debate: the importance of special teams. 

In Sunday's 37-17 loss to the Houston Texans, the Jacksonville Jaguars discovered why that is. Even if this Jaguars team did have last year's magical ability to come back in games, the Jaguars are not a team that can overcome special teams mistakes like missed field goals, blocked field goals, and kickoff returns for a touchdown.

“It’s not even making a play, really. We have guys that can make plays all over the place. It’s just the little things that we’re just shooting ourselves in the foot. We got hands to the face, we got a lot of dropped balls today, myself included. We got a fumble off a big gain, the kick return on a fullback," Jaguars tight end Evan Engram said on Sunday after the loss. 

"We’re just not playing complementary football. Everybody, we know we got guys that can make plays, plays were made today. But we’re not playing complementary football in a consistent way.”

Engram isn't wrong. The Jaguars saw their special teams unit miss a field goal on the opening drive, allow a blocked field goal to set up a short field for a Texans' touchdown, and then allowed a full back to force five missed tackles and return a muffed kick 85 yards for a touchdown. 

The offense isn't playing winning football. On Sunday, the special teams unit joined them.

"Yesterday was a little different, however. I say different from the standpoint of sure, we got back 17-10, but then that kickoff return hit us. That took the wind out of the sails," Pederson said. 

"We still had chances and opportunities, but we gave up those same opportunities on the other side of the ball. They scored, I think, on four out of the five possessions they had counting that kickoff return in the second half. This was a game that it’s very rare where all three phases really had a hand this loss yesterday.”

The kickoff returned for a touchdown was particularly disastrous. The Jaguars had five different chances to bring down Texans fullback Andrew Beck, failing each time and watching him extend the Texans' lead to 24-10 after the Jaguars had brought the score within a touchdown. 

“Yeah, there was a lot of poor tackling. It was a great kick, the ball was on the ground, and we had a great opportunity to pin him deep right there, we just lost leverage. Guys see the ball on the ground and just made a beeline for the ball," Pederson said. "We had about four or five guys miss tackles, that’s just unacceptable. That can’t happen when you have such a great kick.”

“Yeah, I think it took too much," Jaguars center Luke Fortner said on Monday when asked if the return touchdown took away the momentum and energy on the Jaguars' sideline. 

"I think it’s just like in the first half when we missed a kick, and we can’t let that dictate the game. We have chances and we miss them, and we let that dictate the rest of the game of, ‘Oh no, things aren’t going our way.’ That’s adversity, that’s football. Bad plays happen, bad things happen. Yesterday I felt like we didn’t come together when those things happened, and we lost our momentum. It needs to change; it needs to be different.”

But it wasn't just missed tackles. Tackling and blocking are the two most basic and elementary acts done on every football play, but the Jaguars struggled with both. When they weren't missing tackles on a fullback, they were missing blocks on a key field goal. 

“Anton [Harrison] got a little overextended, so head down. What ended up happening was Walker Little being to his outside went to the outside with the three rushers there that created a gap for 51, Will Anderson, to break through and block the kick," Pederson said. 

The Jaguars have a lot of room for improvement after their 1-2 start. Now, special teams is near the top of that list.