September 28, 2025; Santa Clara, California, USA; Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile before the game against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images Kyle Terada-Imagn Images

Which Jaguars' Defensive Unit Badly Needs to Step Up

Originally posted on Jacksonville Jaguars on SI
By John Shipley | Last updated Oct 28, 2025 3:19 PM ET

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The Jacksonville Jaguars' defense is in an interesting place entering their post-bye stretch.

After a dominant first month fueled by turnovers and big plays, the Jaguars' defense ranked No. 29 in EPA/Play and success rate from Weeks 5-7 as they allowed explosive play after explosive play to the likes of the Kansas City Chiefs, Seattle Seahawks, and the Los Angeles Rams.

So, how can the Jaguars turn their defense around and get back on track in Week 9 vs. the Las Vegas Raiders? It will take improvement from several groups, but especially this key unit.

Coen Weighs In

Amongst the position groups that need to see an uptick in production is the defensive tackle room. Through seven games, the Jaguars' defensive tackle unit of Maason Smith, Arik Armstead, DaVon Hamilton, Austin Johnson, and Khalen Saunders have combined for 3.5 sacks, four tackles for loss, and seven quarterback hits.

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"We need to—we've looked at, okay, how do we help them on early downs create more of an edge and get some favorable matchups. We've looked at in the known passing situations where we put in these guys and how can we put them in better positions to be successful and get more ops on the quarterback," Jaguars head coach Liam Coen said on Monday.

"And also, those guys have got to continue to do it on their own as well. If you're going to rush with some four, well we’ve got to go win and so we're going to make an emphasis of it and continue to coach the heck out of it. But we did do a little bit of think tanking as a staff over the week on how we can do that and creating our angles and matchups and also being able to, in base defense, how are we moving some of these pieces around in order to give us favorable matchups on who we think we can win on versus the O-line.”

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Armstead has collected the vast majority of the production amongst the interior group thus far. If the Jaguars are going to make noise over the next 10 weeks, he will need some help sooner than later.