Report: Jaguars to Hire Auburn's Jeremy Garrett as DL Coach

Garrett, who played at Ole Miss from 2004-2007, has a clear connection with new defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen: Nielsen was his position coach for three seasons at Ole Miss.

Garrett is the latest in a long line of reported defensive hires on Nielsen's defensive staff, joining names like Kris Richard, Cory Robinson and Matt House. 

Garrett will be inheriting a defensive line that struggled to make a consistent impact in 2023. Only two of their defensive tackles recorded a single sack, while the run defense plummeted over the final several weeks of the season.

"It’s never just one thing. We finished I believe ninth in run defense, a little over one hundred and some yards. A big part of that fell apart if you look at where we were the first nine, ten games of the year and where we ended up. There was a huge falloff," Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke said last week. 

"Why? A lot of things factor into that. Players got to trust one another. When you start to search for plays and you start to search for answers, whether it’s coaches searching for answers or players searching to make plays and not playing within the scheme of the defense; it’s all it takes for an explosive play. We gave up way too many explosive plays as the season went on, we didn’t protect the ball. We didn’t take the ball away. There’s a lot of things that factor into it. We feel like we have some good players, and we showed that through the first 10 games. Being able to stop the run very consistently, we didn’t do that at the end, so we’ve got to look at why.”