Putrid Jaguars Offense Held Back by Significant Shortcoming

The Jacksonville Jaguars have one of the worst offenses in the National Football League. Improving in this area could help the team see bet results.

Oct 16, 2024; Watford, United Kingdom; Jacksonville Jaguars quarterbacks coach Mike McCoy (right) with quarterback Trevor Lawrence during practice at The Grove. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The Jacksonville Jaguars have only scored on one of their opening drives this season, and it was a field goal. Jacksonville did not score on its opening drive of a game until this past Sunday against the Chicago Bears.

Jaguars offensive coordinator Press Taylor acknowledged that the offense's more aggressive approach could benefit the team. 

Specifically, Taylor noted that the Jaguars' offense must improve its performance on every drive, primarily the first drive of the game, or, the offense's first 15 plays of the game.

Taylor believes this is a pressing issue for the unit, as it is hard for Taylor to get into a flow calling plays and hard for the team to execute if the situation is not an ideal one.

“The first 15 is generally – we kind of just call them the ‘first few’ now because it may go 15, it may go beyond, it may go less,” Taylor said. “They're really just an idea of things we want to get to early in a game.  It's really as long as the situation is what we hope – what we call normal down-and-distance situations. 

“Second-and-15 is not a normal down situation. So, we may veer off the schedule. If the first play of the game were to all of a sudden started at the five-yard line,  plus or minus, we may veer off that script. Because again, the situation dictates to do something different. But they're really ideas of how we want to play in first and second-down. The goal with that is things that would get a lot of guys in rhythm. Would get the line settled into the game. Would get certain players' touches or opportunities for touches early in a game. Get our quarterback settled in.

“Maybe it veers into a tendency breaker of things we've shown a lot on tape that we know people see, and now we want to kind of go against what they've seen or what they're planning for going into the game – just put a little bit of doubt in their mind early in a game. So, there's a number of different things you do.”

Taylor believes mixing up the play calling can go a long way but emphasized that many things go into the plays on game day, including injuries and the opposing team.

Taylor and the offense have already begun preparing for the New England Patriots this weekend. It is a game the Jaguars must win if they have any hopes of turning the season around.

“Sometimes, it's being aggressive on first down,” Taylor said. “To start a game, sometimes it's the first play of the game, a lot of times, is unique to who you're playing as well. Maybe we want to set the tone and be aggressive. Maybe they do something unique on first down to start a game  that we need to be conscious of and just get ourselves the right starting play.” 

“Sometimes it's maybe we want to attack this player early just to test him. Somebody came off the injury report,  whatever that may be, defensively. Or they have a premier player at a certain spot, and we want to show early on how we're going to manage the game with this certain player. So,  there's a lot that goes into it. 

“There's a lot of thought into it. It really kind of starts tonight.  We'll start throwing around ideas of the message we want to send early in a game, whether to our guys or to the opponent as well. Then you just build and tweak it, and that might go right up until kickoff. All of a sudden, we want to change this because we want this guy to  get a certain opportunity early on.”

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