Why Ryan Nielsen Thinks the Jaguars' Defense Has Found Early Success in the Red-Zone

The Jaguars' defense has stifled the offense through two days, and Ryan Nielsen thinks he knows why.

Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen talks to the media ahead of the second day of an NFL football training camp practice session Thursday, July 25, 2024 at EverBank StadiumÕs Miller Electric Center in Jacksonville, Fla.. [Bob Self/Florida Times-Union] / Bob Self/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY

If there were any defining moments over the first two days of training camp for the Jacksonville Jaguars, it came in the red-zone.

The Jaguars spent the first two days of camp working almost exclusively on red-zone work in 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills. This was a first for the Doug Pederson regime, with normalcy returning on Friday for the team's third practice.

But for the first two practices, the Jaguars made a clear and concise emphasis on the red-zone. And for the first two practices, the Jaguars' defense dominated, creating six turnovers (five interceptions, one fumble) and stifling Trevor Lawrence, Mac Jones, and C.J. Beathard.

"We've got some really good red zone teachers. Kris Richard is phenomenal. Learned a lot from him in the red zone. We've got just some philosophy things that have success against offenses," Jaguars defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen said on Thursday. "Then, really our players do a really good job understanding situational football in the red zone. Meaning, what type of plays we get. The offensive playbook trims down a little bit, the run game is a little bit more direct quarterback runs, things like that happen. Our guys really understand, these are the plays that we have to defend. So, just a combination of those things."

That was after the first day of practice, when the Jaguars' defense recorded three interceptions in the red-zone.

"But again, day one. Let's go do it again. That was the whole point yesterday. Look, takeaways in the red zone, that changes football games. Huge plays. Let's do it again today," Nielsen said.

The Jaguars did exactly that, with Foye Oluokun recovering a Luke Farrell fumble in 7-on-7 and safety Andrew Wingard picking off Lawrence in the end-zone twice.

In short, the defense dominated and showed the Jaguars' offense that, for now, the red-zone was there. And according to offensive coordinator Press Taylor, the results weren't the Jaguars' empahsis.

“Yeah, I like what we’ve done where we started the first two days of red zone, really take the volume off the guys' legs, get them back in the flow of playing. It’s different than we’ve normally done," Taylor said. We normally come out, day one install first and second down, next day is third down, next day is red zone. We just went red zone. It's more for the players and I think they appreciate that. With that said, space is restricted, things happen very fast."

"The install is still very small. I think yesterday we probably had 26 reps in the red zone passes. We had six installs, six plays. So we're cycling through and we'll tell Ryan [Nielsen], ‘Hey, plays five, 10, 15, they're all the same play.’ He’ll just mix coverages for us so we can build our tapes. They're doing the same thing. We're playing, they're playing. Obviously, we never want to turn the football over. That's number one. So, there's things that happen that you'll coach off. But as of right now, we're putting our install together. They're putting their install together. We're hoping that the things we're putting in today, tomorrow, throughout the entirety of camp, are things that are going to help us throughout the course of the season, not necessarily to win today or win yesterday as we go.”

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