After a successful first season at the helm, Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson and his team entered 2023 with high expectations. Instead, they got a repeated 9-8 record and a missed opportunity at the playoffs.
Will the disappointing finish of the season, which included a 1-5 record over the final six games, lead to any potential staff changes? Pederson addressed this Monday, saying he had to still take stock of how the season ended.
“At this time, I’m still processing everything. Obviously, we just finished the season, so I’m going to take the next little bit here and think about everything with the way we finished," Pederson said. "It’s not where we want to be and I got to take all of this into consideration.”
Pederson brought back all three coordinators from 2022, while also giving offensive coordinator Press Taylor full-time play-calling duties.
The offense regressed in terms of points, yards, turnovers and in many efficiency standpoints, but Pederson gave Taylor a vote of confidence on Monday, noting that he never considered taking back play-calling duties.
“I thought it went good. Can it be better? Yeah, it can be better. I think at times, when you struggle offensively like we did at times, I don’t care who is calling plays, you might as well look at that thing with your eyes closed and just pick a play," Pederson said.
"Because it’s hard, it’s difficult; I’ve been there. You’re trying to find that one play or a spark that gets your offense rolling and with the struggles we had at times, that’s a difficult thing to do. Whether it’s in the run game or the pass game, whatever it might be. Then, you’re looking at the amount of turnovers. You go up and down the field, you turn the ball over in the red zone. You just can’t do this, it’s not play calling, it’s not the scheme or the design of plays, it’s just having the urgency of ‘we have to protect the football better,’ things of that nature. You jump offsides, now you’re first and 15. Now, you’re looking at first and 15 and anticipating maybe being second and eight, second and seven.
All of that, everything we do matters. As a play caller, yeah, you want to be as efficient as you can, especially on early downs. But at times, you get handcuffed just a little bit by trying to find the right play. Especially when you’re struggling as an offense. I thought overall, Press did a nice job of organizing the offense, the game planning that we did, and even calling. I would have to go back and look at all the numbers, but I think points and different things like that, we were better (than last year). We can still get better on third down and in the red zone, all of that. He did a nice job.”
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