Jacksonville Jaguars’ collapse in team history a total system failure
It was the biggest blown lead in Jaguars history (19 points) and a potentially crippling loss to the Houston Texans. Ryan O’Halloran recaps it.
The Jacksonville Jaguars lost 36-29 to the Houston Texans after blowing a 19-point fourth-quarter lead.Head coach Liam Coen criticized the team’s defense, particularly its inability to generate a pass rush with four players.Texans quarterback Davis Mills was sacked just twice and threw for 292 yards and two touchdowns.
Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen didn’t hold back on the team’s defense after a 36-29 loss to the Houston Texans, which set a new franchise record — and not the good kind.
“We just needed one stop, didn’t get one,” a matter-of-fact Coen said after the game.
To close the game, Jacksonville’s defense allowed drives of 65, 51 and 93 yards to go for touchdowns. The result? A blown 19-point lead and a demoralizing road loss to a division rival.
Simply put, the Jaguars’ offense couldn’t stay on the field, but perhaps more importantly, the defense couldn’t get off the field, either.
With about 13 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Jacksonville held a 29-10 lead and was looking to cruise into a win as Houston shouldn’t have had enough time to claw its way back. Instead, the Jaguars gave up two touchdown passes and a run by quarterback Davis Mills.
Mills completed 27 of 45 passes for 292 yards, two touchdowns, one interception and a 14-yard go-ahead rushing score to end the game. He was hit a total of four times, sacked just twice in 45 drop backs.
That’s not good enough and Coen made his concerns with the team’s pass rush clear after the loss, but first gave some context as to how Jacksonville was burned so often in the fourth quarter to surrender two 20-plus yard completions on the final two drives of the game.
Still, it was Jacksonville’s best defensive strategy to stop Mills.
When blitzed, Mills completed just eight passes on 18 drop-backs for 8.39 yards per attempt, one touchdown and a 38.9% success rate, according to NextGenStats. He completed 151 yards, but one completion came on a 54-yard hailmary pass to Nico Collins as time expired to end the first half.
That means Mills completed 19 of 27 passes for 141 yards and two touchdowns when Jacksonville opted not to blitz.
That’s a problem.
“When you blitz, you’re a little susceptible in the back end,” Coen said before getting to brass tacks of the situation. “When we four-man rush, we’re not getting home. That’s the reality and that’s a hard place for any coach to be in and players as well at times.”
The Jaguars have not had an adequate four-man pass rush all season and that’s been evidenced by the team’s 12 total sacks exiting Week 10. The Jaguars came into the game with a league-worst 10 sacks, including a combined four sacks between Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker.
Jaguars will address pass-rush ‘challenge’ after poor showing vs. Texans
Jacksonville’s pass-rush deficiency wasn’t the only reason why they lost the game Sunday, but it didn’t help.
The team’s best pass rusher was defensive tackle Arik Armstead, who totaled seven pressures and a sack, according to NextGenStats.
Armstead entered Sunday’s game as Jacksonville’s fourth-best defensive lineman at getting pressures at 6.4%. That grades behind Hines-Allen (13.1%) and Walker (11.2%) and defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah (8%), according to NGS.
Hines-Allen and Walker recorded just one quarterback hit a piece against Houston.
“That’s something we definitely need to talk about as a staff and as a group that hasn’t been good enough all season and wasn’t good enough today,” said Coen. “There’s a combination; it’s never one group’s fault when you lose a game. That’s not what we’re gonna do here, but it definitely is a challenge for us at the moment.”
On multiple occasions against the Texans, Jacksonville appeared poised to take down Mills, but couldn’t get him down. On the final touchdown for Houston’s offense to give them a one-point lead, Mills scrambled left after Walker broke free from the other side.
Walker couldn’t get it done, and Mills nearly walked into the end zone on a 14-yard scamper.
The Jaguars return home next week to face the Los Angeles Chargers. At 5-4, they’ll need a win to stay alive in a competitive AFC playoff race.