Welcome into jag xam on this Wednesday, Wednesday, December thirteenth, I'm kay Nannie Stevens, Brian Sexton and John Osier are with me today as we look ahead, the DAGs have lost two in a row, but they're gonna try to write the ship on Sunday Night football against the Ravens. So big thing number one is the clock is ticking because they do have time to turn things around, but there are only four regular season games left if they want to try and close things out in me as
myself and make a run in the playoffs. Don Peterson seems to think there's plenty of time to get things in order.
This time of year, though, is where teams begin to separate, right and you start to get a better picture, or a clear picture at least of the postseason. But you know, for us, it's a matter of just continuing to just focus on us, be us, be who we are. You know, control the things that we can control, and you know not you know, at least go out and not try to lose another football game if possible.
It's just that simple, Ran, just not try to lose another football game.
It's four weeks enough time for them to get everything back in.
Order it is.
Last year they were four and eight KAI and instead of four games remitting, you're obviously five. And there were more difficult games in there, including a game against the Cowboys and against the Titans at the end of the season. So yes, there's plenty of time, and it could certainly start on Sunday. You could jump start this thing with a win over the Ravens. And I get you know, the Ravens are ten and three and they're the number
one team in the AFC. But I don't think that this league is so disparate that the Jaguars are so far behind the Ravens that they can't come out and play well and win on Sunday night. And I'll use John. The Titans with a rookie quarterback going to Miami without their best defensive player, and that rookie quarterback have two touchdown drives in the final three and a half minutes to win. So anything is possible. It could start on Sunday.
Yeah, And I don't think the difference between the Ravens and the Jaguars is the difference between the Dolphins and Titans this year. Look, the Jaguars are eight and five. If they play the way they've played most of the season, they have a very good chance to beat the Ravens. They have played poorly the last two weeks in some key areas, still only lost by seven points.
They're not bad. I think the bad news for.
Them this week is the Ravens are a team that you can play well against and still not beat. It's only a handful of those teams for the Jaguars. I think the Ravens are one of them. But it's not an unwinnable game. Even all that said, there's still time because I think if you win any of the you win three of the last four, and you beat Tennessee, then you win the division. So there's time. But lose this week in the margin fair maybe gone well.
Just to underline what John was saying, Kay, the Jaguars have lost the last two games by combining seven points one A field goal gives you a win at the end of regulation against the Bengals. But more than that, this is an offense. John. Without Christian Kirk, He's had one play in the last two games, and they've scored fifty eight points. That's as good as two game stretch
as they've had all season long. So it is it's turnovers, it's a few key areas, the lack of a running game, which I know we're going to talk about a few key areas, and it's going to be on the practice field this week that Doug Peterson and his offensive staff are going to try to figure that one out.
The offense has been scoring a lot more points that has not really come from the running game though. That's our second big thing about getting creative because obviously Travessey Tanne was doing great in the beginning of the season. He's slowed down tremendously. Part of that the line issues as well, But Doug Peterson says they're gonna have to get a little bit creative to try to get their running game going.
Just again finding those schemes that have worked in our past.
And trying to tap back into that to see if we can't jump start the one game.
It's that simple scheme. It up a little bit differently. Why has the run game been so deficient lately?
It's not that simple, I don't think, and it's been that deficient because I don't think this is a very good run blocking line this year. I think the interior has struggled, and I hate saying that every week. It sounds like I'm bashing those guys. I think it's it's a decent run, it's a decent pass blocking line. But the season has shown us so far that this group has a tough time getting interior push. Travis gets hitting the backfield a lot. It's not all the offensive line,
because it's never all one thing in the NFL. So you ask me, scheme it up, I'd like to see it before. I think they're going to get it fixed. I hope they do, but after twelve games, I don't know that the running game is going to be a juggernaut. I think against the Ravens, what you have to do. You have to find some way to get enough yards to make them respect it and then open up other things.
I think that's hurting them as much as the lack of production.
Well, I'm gonna lean heavily into the offensive line because he had fourteen carries etn did kai and of those fourteen, seven went for two yards or less, and four of those went for negative right, meaning he lost yards with stuff in the backup. So half his carries earned two yards or lesson if you combine them all together. They lost seven yards, so they're getting no push. Brandon Sheriff is a five time Pro Bowl guard, but he's at his best on the move out pulling. That's that's his game.
Lou Fortner has just gotten no push in the middle of the line. And they've had four different starting guards four is it five, and forget they've had four different starting guards over on the left side, so the lack of cohesion there hasn't helped Fortner at all. The middle of the line has been a mess in terms of short yardage. The Jaguars are at fifty percent on third down and two or fewer yards third and two. You should be up near eighty eighty five percent. They're nowhere
close to that. So I think the problem is the lack of power in the middle of their offensive line. And of course they have had a lot of different bodies they were left guard, which hasn't helped either.
A lot of blame to go around right now, at least in our point of view, where they need to work on certain things. The run game certainly one of those. The secondary has been an issue recently as well. Big
plays big problem. Our final big thing because those three big plays really were the difference in the game against the Browns that the secondary gave up some of that miscommunication some of that how they're steaming with the Blitz and dwand Smooth talked a little bit yesterday about some of the miscommunication issues on defense.
Like I just said, it's communication. I mean, we like we just have to be on the same page. Like we've had some some pretty good matchups coming up, and we've been, you know, scheming up a lot of different things and we just got to get back to you know, what allows us to play fast is just communicating and all being on the same ding.
Brian, we talked a couple of weeks about this, what's the disconnect right now? They've been playing together for quite some time.
Now you're you're thirty games into this defense. They brought all the starters back and the staff is the same. I mean, communication issues, especially at home right. I know the noise was a factor, but you want the noise if you're on defense, it's supposed to help you communication issues,
not just by the way on one side of the bowl. Kai, because we heard about the communication issues from the quarterback talking about the interceptions last week in Cleveland, I scratched my head at this because I know Tyson Campbell has been out, but monterk Brown has played pretty well. There have been communication issues between the linebackers and the safeties and that has caused some problems. We saw twice last week.
John i think, the head coach, said on Monday, there were three plays for one hundred and twenty yards that were broken. Plays that were communication issues. We've talked about what we think this team can do and can they play together and get hot not if they can't communicate.
Yeah, they've given up some big plays this year. I think until the other day it was a relatively normal amount. The problem the other day was a couple of things. The big plays went for touchdowns. They had three plays over thirty yards, three touchdown passes. There were thirty yards to giving up. They had allowed five of those all seasons. So it was as much miscommunication, it was just mistakes. Guys bid on play ash and guys went into the backfield when they're supposed to be.
Covering tight ends.
And there was a miss on the touchdown to on the forty one yard to David Bell.
That hasn't happened like that.
It's sort of two weeks in a row where against the against the Bengals they had stopped the run all of a sudden, Against the Browns they had not allowed touchdown big plays, all of a sudden they did.
They've got to stop that or it becomes who they are.
I don't know the answer to say, well, you made a mistake on this play, gave a touchdown, don't make the mistake again. I don't know how else to analyze other than that, maybe I'm missing something.
Sorry, I don't have an answers either.
We're going to talk through some more of it coming up next on jagxam as go over some of this or that for us this week, and we also look around the league see what's going on in the AFC South. Here on jagsam presented by Jet Homebooks. For ten years, Dreambinders Holmes has been proud to call themselves the official homebuilder of the Jacksonville Jaguars. You can visit Dreambinders' homes
dot com for all of the available inventory. P Jaguars Welcome back in to Jagszam this morning, as we're going to talk a little bit about what's been going on in the AFC South because as this gets closer to the end of the season, we got to keep track of those other teams. And if you didn't watch Monday Night football, the Titans certainly put on a show as Will Levis led come back against the Dolphins on the road, and I didn't know they had to do home, especially after the beginning of this game.
To be honest, it's the NFL.
It's end so strange.
That's why the people who are sort of panicked about the Jags losing a couple in our and saying, oh, they stink, they can't do anything. The Dolphins have looked like world beaters, and they lost Tyreek Hill late in the game. But you think about what their fans must be saying. Think about what the Chiefs fans.
Must be thinking.
They used to win the Super Bowl every year and now they've lost two in a row. These kind of things happen late in the season. But it was an impressive game for the Titans. Not that unexpected because a vable coach teams, even when they're bad, are.
Gonna have these moments.
I'm a big believer in that guy.
Yeah, and they look they're playing with nothing to lose right at four and eight. He's got those guys just focused on playing physical football, and the Dolphins, for all of their speed, are not a real physical football team, but not all that strong on defense except the back end, especially without Jalen Phillips right now. So he went in there and beat him in a game they don't like to play.
What also speaks to what this league is.
The league is set up to be late game thing, right, I mean not late like this. The Titans came down, the Dolphins had one drive where they couldn't convert, and then the Titans do it again. It's unusual, obviously, but in a past oriented league, this is.
What the league was not unusual this year. How about the Bears coming back and beating the Lions. I mean, the Bears had no chance according to anybody, and yet here are the Lions, who were hoping to get to ten and three and stay at the top of the the NFC. They fell off to nothing worse than a.
Team with nothing to lose, as we see time and time again throughout this. And then we'll headed to Houston, who we thought was kind of, you know, the team that we needed to be most concerned with, but they've been dealing with a lot of injuries recently as well.
Of course, we know Tank Dell's out for the rest of the season with his leg injury, and now c J. Stroud's and concussion protocol, and Ego Collins had an injury in the game as well, So this could really hamper their you know, run at things towards us.
At the end of the years.
Well, I would expect that it will. You know, they were a team that was playing with house money all season long. The quarterback was given them a lot, and they appear now with some injuries that they hadn't really sustained to be on the cusp. I mean, they've got to go now and play. They're at Tennessee.
This week, they are at Tennessee.
And then they've got Tennessee twice, Tennessee twice the last time, and the Colts. They've got three conference games, they only have one the three division games, and they only have one division win. I believe that was over the Jaguars.
If the Jaguars have earned the spot where they are, and when I say that, I mean they are what four and one in the division right now?
Correct?
They swept the Colts that we're going to talk about next and they split with the Texans, they're a game up, but they're really a game and a half ash up, even two games up. To me, it feels like both the Texans and the Colts, one of them's gonna lose once because they play each other. It feels like both teams are playing the kind of football right now where the best they go is three and one. That means the Jaguars, if they split down the stretch and beat Tennessee, win the division.
So there's some wiggle room for the Jags.
And when I say it that way, I say it in a way that they earned that. Yeah, yeah, for sure wiggle room, so then you take advantage of it. But barring a collapse, if the Jaguars play okay, they're still in control of this thing.
Makes you appreciate them having those games a little bit earlier in this season, because when you got two or three of them at the end of the year, there's so much riding on those games.
The Colts are still in the mix here.
They lost last week to the Bengals, which certainly helped out the Jaguars in terms of, you know, seating there when they're all kind of still pretty close together. A couple of games apart in the division standings, But Colts have a tough schedule. They've got another divisional game coming up, and then whether they'll be able to continue to contend because they've struggled without Jonathan Taylor in there at running.
Back, and there's some thought that he might be back this week. People are going to test them on the practice field, so that would certainly give them a lift. Let's be honest, though, I mean, Jonathan Taylor isn't the
story in Indian my mind. Mine says that defense, which has created some points in some positive field situations for Gardner and for that offense, if their defense comes up opportunistically like they have at various points, you know, against the Titans, against the Panthers, against the Patriots, then that gives them a shot. They're hanging in there at the very what are they seventh right now? Yeah, they're in it.
Yeah, right now. It's really a league. I wrote this for quick thoughts tomorrow. The AFC right.
Now is the Ravens, and then there's a little bit of a mix of Jags angles, I mean Jags, Dolphins, maybe Chiefs. But there's seven or eight teams they could all still be in this it's sort of the Ravens and everybody else. Frankly, I mean the Chiefs and Dolphins because they were hot early in the j are sort of a but Bengals, Browns. Everybody's sort of saying the Browns with such a bad loss. You know, the Browns record is same as a jack yea. So it's a
very even AFC. It's as much parody after the Ravens as I can remember.
You know, the Kansas City when you look at them and people are what's the matter with them?
Right?
They're a mind a seven. I mean they have always been a positive turnover ratio team with Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, and because those receivers aren't the big play guys that he's used to. The only guy down the field that they've been able to consistently rely on is Kelsey, and teams have been able to take him away. But being minus seven is it is what Kansas City just
isn't the same Kansas City. They're obviously having to retool and figure things out as they have traded away Tyreek Hill and let some guys go in free agency.
Can't score it will as much as they use well.
It also shows you that as much as we all talk, and I'm guilty of it, the whole quarterback who can lift everything by himself is is a little bit of a myth. Were one of the best quarterbacks of all time, Peyton. He couldn't lift everything by himself. You needed players around him, and even Brady had other things. I know the receivers weren't always frontline guys, but there were other things for those teams. As good as they are, none of them could do it absolutely alone.
I think they maybe asking Patrick to do a little too much this year.
They are We'll see, all right, stay with us.
We're gonna do a little this or that coming up after the break here in Jagsam, Price dot com is the easiest way to save money with comparison shopping, cash back coupons, all that in one.
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Try price dot com today, this school that, this school that, welcome back to jag Zam. We're gonna do a little price dot com this or that. We're gonna talk about some of what we've talked throughout the week, but look at some film and kind of try to go with what we think is going on, or try to choose or what we think maybe they might change going forward.
So one of the things we talked about was the susceptibility to that big play, specifically against the Browns, where they gave up three of those big plays and some of them coming on the blitz right, So they are trying to help out their pass rush by sending extra people, but that ends up burning them.
So it's a little bit of a double edged sword.
Do you try to help out the pass rush and send extra people or do you try to keep them back and try to prevent some of those big plays from burning you. I mean, I guess it's you want to do both ideally or pick your spots.
But is the blitz coming back to bite them? Sometimes?
Brands, Well, it does and they haven't been able to get home John with four very often lately and that's caused problems for them as well. Blitzing a guy like Lamar Jackson is always dangerous because if everybody isn't in their lane, he's thirty yards down the field before you even know what comes at you.
Yeah, I don't think the first two.
Weren't as much pass blitz as they were biting on play action. So look, you've got a blitz at times or else you're two predictable in this scheme. You have to bring guys or else it doesn't work. You know, you've got to hope it works when when you send it. H that's always the problem that you know. One thing it's always true is when you don't blitz. Fancy, why didn't you blitz?
It worked?
The blitz Well, if it worked all the time, you know, the teams would always do blitzlit So so you've got to pick your spots with it. They've got good blitzers on this team.
Rachel Jenkins is very good at it, but he hasn't gotten home in recent weeks.
Right, I don't think you stop it.
We did see Antonio Johnson get a strip seck.
Another young guy who can really get after it. Andre Cisco is a good blitzer from that safety spot. So it isn't so much blitzer not blitch. It's when to blitz right in what situations and calling the right blitz at the right moment. That's on they had well the.
Defensive coordinator, yes, Mike call Goal makes those choices. On the other side of the ball.
We saw a lot of miscommunication that game against Cleveland, probably more than we've seen on the offense in quite some time, and it was demonstratively like you could see it, like the just them both kind of the you know, their hands, they're all talking a lot. It's noticeable that
they aren't understanding. They're not on the same page. They aren't understanding what routes they're supposed to be running, or Trevor thinks they're running a different route maybe whatever it is, but they need someone to step up while Christian Kirk is out for the foreseeable future, and I think at this point we know Evan Ingram will step up, but now it's going to be down between Zay Jones and Calvin Ridley.
So when we look at these two guys, both of them seem to.
Be a little bit off in that game against Cleveland, John, do you think one or the other will be able to kind of get back to where they need to be.
So I'm kind of hope they both will because I think this offense, more than anything has shown ideally it's got the four. The Big four doesn't have that, So you know, it worries me to think that both of these guys might not step up because in this passing offense, I think you need those.
Three I would lean towards Zay if he was one hundred percent healthy. I don't know that he is.
It's hard to know that because you know you can't get inside somebody else's body. But it doesn't feel like he's going at his highest level physically. If he's one hundred percent physically, I think he steps up because I think there is innate trust with he and Trevor.
Wednesday's right, and they do think it's to a degree. You also have to get it going with Calvin Ridley. You can't ignore him because if you do, he does. With him, it's been the story of get him in ball durly and things start to flow. He's not a guy that you want to completely ignore because of a couple of mistakes last week. Although how about Parker Washington. I mean he's a guy that I think all of us expect to make a play now based on what we've seen the last two weeks.
Yeah, it's hard to put the go to make the offense saying role on Parker because you don't know if that trust is going to be there.
But I think he's going to be a factor.
I think one thing it sometimes gets lost and since this after the New Orleans game, and then after this game when you know he was Superman to be playing, meaning Trevor, and for what ninety six hours leading to the game, all anybody's talking about is can he play?
Can he play? Can he play?
And as soon as the game starts, you forget the kids hurt, and you forget that he didn't practice, And I get all these emails on Monday. Oh, Trevor Lawrence stinks, he's this, He's not this? Well, did you forget that he didn't practice last year? So's he's probably gonna have some in accuracy and guess what, there's probably gonna be some communication issues when a kid doesn't practice. So there is that convenient amnesia. Oh I told you he wasn't
any good. Well, he's been good leading to that game. He had been playing very well, even against Cincinnati until he got hurt, and then all of a sudden it wasn't the same.
Well, it's the ankle, Brian.
I just want to circle back to Parker Washington. I didn't mean to implay. And the question didn't ask will he become the go to guy? It said who will step up? And he has stepped up the last two
weeks and made plays touchdowns, third down conversions. Now he also had the fumble, But I'm I just I get the sense talking to the kid that he could step up and make a couple of plays here that would free up Ridley or Jones from the double team, right, because that's what we saw on that key fourth down play. The safety and the linebacker both were right there on Zay Jones. I mean, both of them right at the time. So I think you need a guy like Washington in
the middle of the field or Luke Ferrell, right. I mean, there's nothing that says that he can't come back out and make a couple of plays for you as well.
And they can benefit from some of that too, because if Ridley or someone else draws the coverage Parker Washington, hopefully you'll.
Have a little bit of availability there.
And I will say he doesn't know the entire playbook, obviously, he's a rookie, hasn't gotten there yet. But what he does know he's good at. Yeah, you don't make some impressive physical plays as well. Come down with football.
Sometimes you just need to play here or there from some of these guys. They don't have to become a star.
And Parker's given. Yeah, just play here.
You can get somewhere with just one or two.
The flashes are there. It's great to see from Parker. All right, say with us, we'll preview what we got going on the rest of the week.
Here on jag vam JAG's fans.
If you want customized Jaguars furniture for your home, check out zipchare dot com to browse all the customer customizable options. Zipchair is furniture made for fans and also the Sunday's game is brought to you by publics where shopping is a pleasure. Sunday Night football brought to you by public six week against the Ravens should be a good one. We know they're going to have another light show to start up the game like they did last week, which
was pretty cool. It's just nice to have a primetime game because it feels a little bit more important. Obviously, this game is going to be important no matter what time they played it at because of where these two teams are at right now. But it's gonna have a little extra juice being on a Sunday night.
Yeah, and this and this team could use a little bit of extra juice coming off back to back losses. You know, if you offer John to the coach, do you think your team will play desperate this week like the Niners did, like the Browns did. But he doesn't like that line of questioning. He doesn't like that idea. But there is something to the idea that you have a team that says, our backs against the wall, let's
go right. There's something to that idea of rallying around or circling the wagons, whatever metaphor you want to use, but that this team uses the bright lights and the last two losses and says our backs are to the wall, let's go play.
Yeah.
And I probably fell victim to it a little bit after the two losses of Oh, this is the Ravens. There's no way they win this. They haven't been outclassed the last couple of weeks. They've played poorly in some spots. The Ravens I expect to be favorite, should be favorite, the best team in the AFC. But this is a game where I don't know why the Jaguars wouldn't be confident going in. They beat him last year. They know they can match up against the mobile quarterback. They're good
at stopping the run. If they play well, they can win this game.
They have to play well.
You don't know, they've had some trouble in front of their offensive line and been rotating offensive tackles in I'd like to say, Josh Allen Trayvon Walker. I mean to me, that's as key as there is in this game, is those two guys keeping Lamar Jackson in the pocket and getting some push up the middle.
See if they're able to do it, Josh.
Of course, approaching Klay's Campbell's single season sack record as well, that's certainly in the mix for possibly happening. He's went away from tying one and a half away from going ahead, So see if that happens on Sunday night as well.
All right on.
Jags aam tomorrow, We're gonna go over all things Ravens as we get prepped for Sunday night football.
See you tomorrow,