Jaguars' Defense on Going Into 2025 Lighter

Former Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen had one philosophy that he would engrain into his players: " Mass kicks ***." The belief that bulkier players on defense, especially those on the defensive front, would improve run-defense schemes.

For star pass-rushers Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker, that wasn't the case. Hines-Allen himself admitted that the added weight ended up negatively affecting his play towards the end of last season.

"My mindset was always to be as dominant, but obviously, holding a little bit more weight kind of puts a little bit more wear and tear on the body," Hines-Allen said. "It was a lot. Too much.

"Again, learn to adapt. Got to know what works best for you. Something that I tried, and something that I'm, like, 'All right, I probably don't want to do that again.'"

With Nielsen out, new DC Anthony Campanile is ready for a do-over, now that both players are back to being lighter according to him.

"I really like the way they look right now," said Campanile (along with head coach Liam Coen), who told his defense to simply play at the weight that they're most comfortable. "I think they are really moving well. They have a ton of strength, which you need that. You need strength at the point of attack, you have to play physical. ...

"I love what they have done this offseason. Our strength staff has done an unbelievable job with these guys. They have been grinding them and it's showing out here."

Hines-Allen told media that he played at 285 pounds last season, the heaviest out of all 6 years that he's been in the NFL. He experienced quite the drop off in production from 2023 to 2024 as he had less than half the amount of sacks last year than the one prior (17.5 to 8).

However, Hines-Allen strayed away from pinning all the blame on his weight, although he mentioned it could've definitely been one of the factors.

"See, I don't know because I was also getting banged up a lot more," he said. "My body was not cooperating as much as I would want it to. I take care of my body to the utmost, but it was a little bit different. I don't know if that had something to do with the weight. So, that's something I took into consideration coming into this season."

Walker didn't put on quite as much weight as Hines-Allen did. He played at 272 lbs. during 2023, but didn't specify how much he put on for last season. Still, he too said that the weight definitely affected him in some sort of way.

"I am not going to use that as an excuse, but I felt like it took a little bit of a toll on me closer [to] the end of the season," Walker said. "It has its pros and cons."

Walker has had back-to-back 10+ sack seasons, and would become the first Jaguar ever to achieve three consecutive double-digit sack seasons. This year is going to be a very important year for Walker, as a big season could lead to accelerated contract-extension talks.

"Everybody wants to get double-digit sacks," Walker said. "For me, I just want to be a total and complete football player. I want to be able to stop the run because we aren't able to rush the passer without stopping the run. Once we do that it allows us to get after the quarterback. I just want to come out here and be the best overall player I can be every day."

Hines-Allen also stated that he would like to be on the field more in 2025, and going down in weight would help with that tremendously.

"I don't want to get off the field. That allows me to lose a little weight, because I don't want to get off the field. I want to do what's best for my team.

"I want to play at a high level each and every rep, get out, get a squirt of water and come back in and play four or five plays if needed, full speed, and take over games. That's my mentality, that's the mindset and that's the goal at the end of the day."

The Jaguars have signed multiple veterans such as Dawuane Smoot (25 career sacks) and Emmanuel Ogbah (47.5 career sacks) to help with the defensive pass rush. However, Coen has stated that Walker and Hines-Allen would have to continue to carry the load in order for this team to succeed.

"I know that they had put some weight on in order to play some of the schemes structures that they were playing, and that's just anybody's prerogative," Coen said. "That's the way they wanted to do it and ultimately just kind of evaluating it and talking to some of the players and just trying to get them back down a little bit to maybe where they had been when maybe they had had better years or been a little bit more productive and definitely better for those guys to feel fresh."

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