JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jaguars are healthy, focused and ready, but there are still some questions that need some answers as they close in on the regular season.
Jacksonville has a bit of the unknowns as it prepares to head to Miami for the season opener on Sunday. Doug Pederson still hasn’t revealed who will be calling plays (either Pederson or Press Taylor) and the team has a new defensive coordinator this season in Ryan Nielsen. Will the Jaguars play more like the team that started last year 8-3? That’s the hope. Trevor Lawrence is now one of the highest-paid players in league history and the team invested heavily to fortify its receiving corps and defensive line in free agency and the draft.
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But the last time fans saw Jacksonville players on a field for a regular season game it was the finishing touch to a death spiral that kept the Jaguars out of the playoffs and sparked an offseason of change and speculation.
Owner Shad Khan said that this is the best team that the Jaguars have ever had (the team that went to the AFC title game and had a 14-2 regular season record in 1999 may beg to disagree) and the expectation is to go out and show it. Pederson said that those expectations should be the norm. Jacksonville has posted back-to-back nine-win seasons in Pederson’s time in town but those had drastically different feelings to them. In 2022, the Jaguars surged in the second half and won the AFC South with a furious finish and Week 18 comeback win over the Titans. Last year, the Jaguars imploded and lost five of their final six games to miss the playoffs.
“Quite honestly, that’s what I was hired to do and that’s why we brought these players in here to do is to win football games. We’re not going to make excuses for why, we just have to go do it. I can appreciate that. It doesn’t add any extra pressure or anything like that. We just have to go do our jobs.”
The year-long question about playcalling remains an unknown. Taylor called plays full time last year and the offense was inconsistent from start to finish. Khan has expressed an interest in Pederson calling plays, but the coach hasn’t publicly disclosed which way he’s leaning.
“Still working through that. Press and I are still talking about it,” Pederson said.
A bigger dynamic than offensive playcalls is Ryan Nielsen’s first game running the Jaguars defense. It’s a much different system than Mike Caldwell employed so there will naturally be some nuances getting out on the field for a regular season game for the first time.
“So, there’s going to be some unknowns, some things that pop up,” Pederson said. “But again, it just goes back to we as coaches have to trust our instincts and coach our players accordingly, make the adjustments.”
The Jaguars face a Dolphins team that expects to be a contender in the AFC East. Miami lost to eventual Super Bowl champ Kansas City in the wildcard round last season but brings back a seriously talented team. Tyreek Hill is one of the most electric players in the NFL. Tua Tagovailoa was healthy last season and led the league in passing. No game is easy in the NFL but Miami on the road is a tough Week 1 game.
“Very important. Every week is. I mean, every week’s crucial. You just never know, down the line,” Lawrence said.
“It’s early, it’s Week 1 and you think you’ve got 17 games, but at the end of the season you never want to be in a position — think of last year, for example — where you look back and, yeah, of course, we finished the season bad, but you also look back to the beginning and you’re like, ‘Man, we let some games slip early that would have gave us even more room at the end of the season.’ So, it’s really important.”
Pederson said that a strong start is imperative but he’s not overemphasizing Sunday’s game.
“No. I mean, it’s Week 1. A lot can happen between now and Week 18. I think in my mind, yeah, I think of it that way,” Pederson said. “But I think when you’re talking to the team, I don’t want to put that kind of pressure right now. I mean, it’s just not — it’s Week 1. You just want to play good football and get off to a good start and see what happens, but I don’t have those conversations … Not this early.”