Ryan Nielsen Gives His Scouting Report of Trevor Lawrence, Jaguars' Offense
Week 4 ended up being an important week for the Jacksonville Jaguars in their pursuit of new defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen.
Nielsen, then the defensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons, spent an entire week coming up with a game plan to stop the Jaguars' offense and Trevor Lawrence. He came up short as the Jaguars won 23-7, but he was able to hold the Jaguars' offense to 16 points.
He was also able to see up close what type of offensive potential the Jaguars would have moving forward -- a key piece in his decision to join the Jaguars' staff this spring.
“We’ll start with the quarterback pTrevor Lawrence]. The guy is a really good football player; big, athletic, he can make all the throws. He runs well," Nielsen said on Thursday.
The value of a top-notch quarterback obviously goes a long way for defensive coordinators. The best friend of any defense is a good offense, and Nielsen saw just how important the position was in Atlanta.
Today with the Jaguars, Nielsen is optimistic about how the defense can coexist with the other side of the ball.
"Physical offensive line, skilled in the receiver position, tight end runs well, heck of a couple of backs. When you put it all together, as we were looking, that’s one of the pieces and why we wanted to come down here and be a part of this, they’ve got some talent over there and really good players," Nielsen said.
"Like we were talking about earlier, let’s just give them the ball back as many times as we can.”
The Jaguars' offense didn't always pull its weight in 2023, especially during the 1-5 losing stretch in the final six weeks. A lot of that came down to self-inflicted wounds, though, something the Jaguars hope they can correct before 2024.
And if they do, then they very well could form a hell of a duo with Nielsen's defense.
“Like we talked about in the very beginning, we want to be an attacking and aggressive style of defense that runs to the ball, that goes and hunts the ball, just put the pressure on the offense. That’s what we feel like we could bring, that’s just a style that we want to play," Nielsen said.
"We feel that when we talk to Coach Pederson and complements what we’re doing on offense and it would be very complementary to the other side of the ball and get them the ball as much as possible. Trevor [Lawrence], they’ve got a lot of talent over there and they’re very good. We just want to do our job and get the ball back to them as many times as possible. When we do that, we’ll win a lot of games. Really, just keep giving the ball back to the offense in good field positions and it will be good in the end.”
