When it comes to the back-breaking penalties that helped doom the Jacksonville Jaguars' defense last week, defensive coordinator Joe Cullen believes the solutions are there -- or at least they should be.
"We just have to continue to get better, continue to develop, eliminate the pre-snap penalties, eliminate the mistakes in terms of too many men on the field, and that starts with communication," Cullen said on Thursday.
"[It] starts with me, trickles down. [We] have to take care of that and the self-inflicted wounds, the late hits on the quarterback."
But that is easier said than done. For Cullen's unit, it will come down to proving on Sundays that the can become a defense that doesn't shoot itself in the foot. And in Week 8, this was far from the case.
On three separate occasions in the first-half of Sunday's 31-7 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, the Jaguars found themselves helping the Seahawks' offense move the ball closer to the end zone as a result of self-inflicted penalties -- penalties that normally can and should be avoided.
Two of the penalties were for roughing the passer on plays where the Jaguars got defensive stops -- one called against DaVon Hamilton and one on Jihad Ward. Neither were plays in which either Hamilton or Ward hit Geno Smith late or low, but each landed on the quarterback with their full body weight, resulting in free yards for a Seattle defense that was already coming by yards with ease.
"Sometimes you take those. It’s an aggressive penalty. Those really weren’t late, but you have to roll. Three years ago, that wouldn’t have been a penalty, but when you land with your body, I don’t care if you’re a defensive back, you just have to roll. [We need to] educate them and practice it and we have," Cullen said.
That is an area the Jaguars have emphasized in the past, just like every other defense that has had to adjust to the NFL's protection of quarterbacks. But with all 32 teams facing the same rules, the Jaguars will have to find a way to adjust -- especially considering the lack of a margin of error for the 1-6 Jaguars.
"It is, but [Defensive Line Coach] Tosh [Lupoi] and [Assistant Defensive Line Coach] Sterling [Lucas], what I used to do, they do the same thing, you use the crash mat and the dummy because you’re never allowed to go live against your own quarterbacks," Cullen said. "Then obviously you get the preseason games and the regular season games, and you want to get there. You’re going to have a little bit better push up the middle and all of a sudden you get there.
"Like the one, third play of the game, K’Lavon [Chaisson] knocked the ball out. Now, I told him it’s a game of inches. If you run, run, reach and you get the ball out, but then, if you land on him, that’s negated. We did exactly what we wanted to on both of those plays by [DaVon] Ham[ilton] and by Jihad [Ward]. They really did. They made great moves, beat their guys, their great pocket push, but once you hit, you have to roll.”
Perhaps more worrisome for the Jaguars moving forward than the penalties on the instances in which they hit the quarterback were the other first-half issues -- too many men on the field. The Jaguars have had issues with sending substations onto the field on time all season, and it came back to bite them in the red-zone against the Seahawks as the Jaguars were hit with a 12-men on the field penalty.
Then, on the very next play, the Jaguars wasted a potentially valuable timeout as they once again had 12 players on the field, just moments after being flagged for it.
"Just lack of discipline, sloppy play, the 12-man issue –one penalty and one timeout. We needed that timeout, so we have to get that corrected. I was really upset about that, that should never happen," Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer said on Monday.
Cullen believes the Jaguars have the ability to correct these mistakes, but it starts with communication, especially in critical moments. And to his part, he doesn't think scaling down on the defensive scheme or number of sub-packages could impact the mental mistakes.
“Well really with that, it wasn’t a hurry up situation. It starts with communication. When you’re going on the field, signal whatever the package is. When you’re coming off the field, signal. It’s just something that’s inexcusable and it starts with me," Cullen said. "The packages? No, we have four of them. It’s not hard. Some years we’ve had 11, but no.”
The Jaguars' defense hasn't been good enough to overcome both their opponents and themselves over the first seven games. For things to change moving forward, the unit will have to learn how to get out of its own way.
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