'Sacksonville' Jaguars lose their swagger after drubbing in Dallas
A month ago, following a victory over the New England Patriots to mark a 2-0 start, the Jacksonville Jaguars seemed to announce their staying power atop the AFC. Sure, 2017 brought them to the doorstep of the Super Bowl, but sometimes such runs can be flukes. Rebounding and taking one from the Pats, even in September, suggested a sustained fortitude. Plus, Blake Bortles throwing four touchdowns is shocking enough to seem important, even if it’s just one regular-season game.
And yet here we are four weeks later, and suddenly the Jaguars are faltering. It’s one thing to have lost three of their last four. That’s bad enough. But the way they’ve lost the last two weeks has to be disconcerting for a team billed as — and proud of its status — a defensive powerhouse.
One reason for the setback is the play of Bortles, which is something Jaguars fans have been conditioned to expect. In the last two weeks, however, it’s also been a surprisingly sieve-like defense that has added to their downfall. On Sunday, the Jaguars’ pride and joy got torched to the tune of 40 points and 200-plus yards allowed on the ground against a Cowboys team that hadn’t topped 26 points in their first five games.
Postgame, a usually boisterous Jalen Ramsey was decidedly more laconic with the media. This was a secondary, during the second half of a Week 5 loss to the Chiefs, that was mocking opposing receivers who were looking for flags after incomplete passes. Even if the Kansas City loss looks bad on paper — the Chiefs scored 30 points — it doesn’t look quite as bad during close examination. One of Kansas City’s touchdowns was a pick-six of Bortles, one of his five turnovers on the day. And the Jags defense did get two interceptions out of Patrick Mahomes, his first two of the season.
A blowout loss to the heretofore offensively inept Cowboys was a blow to the ego of too many, it appears. Also, no matter which part of the defense is most culpable, it’s a problem for the collective all the same.
Defensive tackle Malik Jackson was more stark in his assessment.
"We got our ass kicked today," he said after the game. "I don't know what else to tell you."
If he sounds more astringent than a somewhat sulking Ramsey, he should be. The run defense has been the main issue over the past few weeks. If the Jaguars did a comparatively good job on Mahomes compared to what some other teams accomplished against him, they didn’t exactly contain the Chiefs' ground game, allowing 126 yards and two scoring runs in the loss. As for Dallas, Dak Prescott had a typical Dak game through the air, posting 182 yards. Until his game improves, that’s about what you’re going to get from him. That the Cowboys put 40 points on the board is a testament to how dominant they were on the ground, both with Dak's zone-read runs and Ezekiel Elliott's 24 carries.
As with the celebrated Seahawks defenses of recent years past, the secondary got all the attention because it has the stars. Ramsey is the biggest character, and therefore his take will be eagerly awaited at any significant moment. It’s not like he shares no blame whatsoever, but it seems like maybe the Jaguars bought into that hype a bit. Against the Cowboys, the Jaguars stayed in the nickel package on 75 percent of defensive snaps, even as Dallas was piling up yards on the ground.
The Jacksonville secondary is still very good. There will be many pronouncements this week about how Jacksonville’s defense is no longer elite or maybe never was, but there’s plenty of time to make fans forget about two bad weeks in October. After all, the Jags allowed 37 and 44 points in two of their losses in 2017, and by the end of the season Jacksonville’s D was hailed as among the best in football.
Obviously, the coaching needs to be more flexible and the run defense shored up. Lucky for the Jaguars, the AFC South is every bit as roundly mediocre as recent history has led people to expect. It’s the only division in the NFL without a team above .500. That means Jacksonville has a bit of wiggle room while it tries to figure out what’s gone wrong. That’s important, because almost all teams experience some peaks and valleys over the course of a full season. Maybe the Jags let themselves forget that in the high of beating the Patriots. Properly humbled, now they just have to get down to business.
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