JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Doug Pederson doesn’t have the answers and he’s done with the speeches. It’s time for the Jaguars to find a way to deliver.
The Jaguars are one of the league’s worst teams with a growing list of problems (and injuries) that don’t have easy fixes. The problems that dragged Jacksonville from an 8-3 start to a 9-8 finish last season are still prevalent and perhaps even worse.
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And Pederson, who was revered in 2022 when he led the Jaguars to the AFC South title and the divisional round of the playoffs, is on the hottest seat of any head coach in the NFL.
Owner Shad Khan expected a playoff team, making a bold (and ridiculous) proclamation that this was Jacksonville’s best team ever. Pederson said that Khan has been “supportive” of the mission and what the coaching staff is doing.
“Yeah, we’ve had great conversations before and after football games,” Pederson said of Khan. “Obviously, those conversations are private and all of that, but he’s very supportive, been supportive and continues to be supportive of what we’re doing.”
But will Khan’s patience run out? He’s fired two coaches during the season, canning Gus Bradley (14-48) late in his fourth season and then ending the woeful Urban Meyer experiment 13 games into perhaps the worst head coaching stint in NFL history.
Pederson certainly hasn’t been as bad as either Bradley or Meyer, but Khan’s expectations then probably weren’t nearly as grand. The Jaguars handed out franchise-record contract extensions to Tyson Campbell, Josh Hines-Allen and Trevor Lawrence this offseason. Campbell is on injured reserve. Allen has one sack in three games and Lawrence has been as frustratingly inconsistent as he’s always been. Pederson said that everyone in the building needs to work on finding the solution.
“I had mentioned that the coaches need to coach and players need to play and obviously, the leadership. If you want to be an elite football team, it’s led from within, right,” Pederson said. “It’s led by the players. Listen, the speeches are done, the speeches are over, we don’t need any more ‘rah-rah’ stuff. It’s just time to go play football, fix the mistakes and do everything we can to play our best football this weekend.”
The Jaguars are 0-3 for the seventh time in franchise history and there’s no way to gloss over how those seasons ended. Jacksonville hasn’t won more than five games in any of those seasons where it started 0-3. Unless things change and change in a hurry, this one won’t either. The Texans (2-1) are up next on Sunday.
There aren’t any clear solutions on what the Jaguars can do to get on track. The defense had played well enough to win against Miami (20-17 loss) and Cleveland (18-13 loss). It was atrocious against the Bills, allowing touchdowns on the first five drives and falling into the largest first-half deficit in franchise history.
There’s at least some tape this year that shows the defense functioning at a high level. That’s a positive. But the offense has yet to show much of anything. The Jaguars have four touchdowns in three games. Quarterback Josh Allen threw four touchdowns in the first half against the Jaguars.
Jacksonville has scored the third-fewest points in the league, ahead of just the Patriots (39) and the Dolphins (33), who scored 20 against the Jaguars but are playing with a backup quarterback. Lawrence is mired in the worst start to his career and has lost eight straight starts.
The expectation after signing a $275 million contract extension was that a healthy Lawrence could play like he did in the second half of the 2022 season and the start of the 2023 when he was one of the best quarterbacks in the league. The reality is that Lawrence has played like he did as a rookie and during the start of 2022.
The offensive line is still a mess across the board. And the skill position players with the exception of rookie Brian Thomas Jr., have started slow. Pederson said that the team could get tight end Evan Engram back for this week’s game at Houston after a hamstring has kept him out.
Elsewhere across the roster, there appear no easy fixes.
Pederson’s reluctance to consider sweeping changes on that side of the ball are partially what led to his ouster in Philadelphia. Pederson believes in offensive coordinator Press Taylor and stood by him last year despite that side of the ball underwhelming all season long.
When asked if the Jaguars are considering any changes to coaching responsibilities, Pederson answered with a curt, “no.”
Three weeks into what is shaping up to be a lost (and lame duck) season, the Jaguars need something, anything to get the train back on the track. Pederson fired defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell after last season’s finish, but there was more than just a buzz that the coach did that to buy his system and Taylor some time.
That time is quickly running out.