Doug Pederson: Jaguars' Headsets Went Down on Wide-Open Kadarius Toney Touchdown

The Jaguars had no defender within 10 yards of Kadarius Toney on his six-yard touchdown on Sunday, something Doug Pederson chalked up to communication issues.

Week 10 didn't go great for the Jacksonville Jaguars' defense. 

This is to be expected against Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid's juggernaut Kansas City Chiefs offense, but what is not to be expected is for touchdowns to be scored without a defender in sight. 

The first of Mahomes' four touchdown passes in the 27-17 loss was just that, though, with a six-yard strike to wide receiver Kadarius Toney coming without a Jaguar anywhere near the play.

IT'S TONEY TIME. pic.twitter.com/VaWS3WzyIr

— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) November 13, 2022

When a player is that wide open at the NFL level, it is usually due to an error from the defense, whether one execution or communication. In this case, it was the latter.

“We got caught,actually, about two plays in a row there our defensive headset went down, and so we had to make a call on the fly, and communication was two different calls on the field, so there was a missed assignment," Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson said on Monday afternoon. 

"You try to hand signal it, which we try to do, but with the time running and breaking the huddle, Foye (Oluokun) does a nice job of getting the guys lined up anyway, and being in that environment, it was just a little bit loud and couldn’t hear all the calls. It’s unfortunate."

As Pederson would explain, there were not any other cases of the headsets going down in Arrowhead Stadium. The play before the Toney score was a nine-yard run by the Chiefs.

“No, just about two plays in a row on defense. Offense was fine. It just happened in the red zone," Pederson said.

This isn't a complete rarity and, as Pederson said, the Jaguars still have things in place to ensure they are in the right play if these types of situations happen. But this time, it resulted in the Chiefs' easiest touchdown of the day.

"It’s the same way on offense. If the headset goes down, Trevor (Lawrence) has a handful of plays he can get to right away," Pederson said. "We’ve got to make sure that when that happens that the guys are prepared.”

The Chiefs scored three other passing touchdowns on the Jaguars when the headsets were working, however -- an 18-yard touchdown to Marques Valdes-Scantling, a 13-yard touchdown to Noah Gray and a seven-yard touchdown to Travis Kelce.

With the loss, the 3-7 Jaguars will enter their Week 10 bye needing to win five of their last seven games to ensure they do not have a fifth-consecutive season with double-digit losses.

“Well, I’m not giving them the whole week. I’m going to bring the guys in tomorrow and Wednesday and get some work in, especially with our younger players," Pederson said on Monday. 

"I think it will be good and beneficial to work with them and keep their development and growth coming, but at the same time, our older players, the starters, it’s a time to sort of rest and heal and get ready for this back half push. I will talk to them about how to handle their business with the four days off that I have to give them, and it’s all about being a professional. We do get time off during the bye, and coaches are the same way. How we handle it really can affect next week for sure, but it can also set a standard for the rest of the year.”