Jaguars worried about turnover trend
It isn’t often when a team is minus-7 in turnovers and has committed 11 more penalties than its opponents through five games, that such a team will still have a winning record. But that’s the case with the Jacksonville Jaguars who enter Week 6 with a 3-2 mark on the eve of its next game in Dallas.
The Jaguars have lost five fumbles (out of nine miscues) and quarterback Blake Bortles has thrown seven interceptions following his horrendous four-pick game last Sunday against Kansas City. Compare those 12 giveaways to the Jaguars picking off three passes and recovering both of their opponents’ two fumbles for a total of just five takeaways. The negative-7 result in turnovers leaves the Jaguars near the bottom in turnover ratio. It’s a statistic that head coach Doug Marrone is very concerned about.
“We’re minus-7 right now,” he said. “We’re 3-2 but minus-7 which is really tough to do, be 3-2 and be minus-7 in the turnover ratio. It’s a trend that I talked about with the team today. If we don’t change that, we’re going to be in trouble. We have to change that.”
That’s just one of the Jaguars concerns. For a team with Super Bowl aspirations this year, the negative aspects of this season continue to mount. On Wednesday, Marrone confirmed that three players had already been ruled out for Sunday’s game against Dallas. They included starting running back Leonard Fournette (hamstring) who will miss his fourth full game this season, left tackle Josh Wells (groin) who had started the last three games for the injured Cam Robinson, and nickel back D.J. Hayden (toe) who hasn’t played since his injury against New England in the second game of the season.
With first-year free-agent Brandon Wilds released from the roster after showing he wasn’t able to contribute in a positive manner, the Jaguars elected to take a chance on a proven veteran who hasn’t had a productive season since 2014. The Jaguars are hopeful that veteran running back Jamaal Charles still has enough in his tank to lend some much-needed support to the running game.
Jacksonville signed Charles on Tuesday to serve as the main backup to T.J. Yeldon, currently the team’s only healthy running back. Fournette continues to recover from a hamstring injury that has limited him to just four quarters of play in the team’s first five games this season. With reserve Corey Grant out for the season with a Lisfranc injury and Wilds released for lack of productivity, the Jaguars are turning to Charles with the hope he can produce like he did during his glory years between 2010 and 2014. That’s when he ran for more than 1,000 yards five times, including a career-high 1,509 yards in 2,012.
Charles is a 10-year veteran who was a reserve behind C.J. Anderson and Devontae Booker with the Denver Broncos last year. He rushed 69 times for 296 yards (4.3 yards per attempt) and one touchdown in 14 games. Charles still holds the NFL’s all-time average of 5.39 yards per attempt for players with at least 1,000 carries. In his glory days Charles was voted to the Pro Bowl in 2010 and for three straight seasons in 2011-2014. But he’s not been the same back since then. He missed 24 games from 2015-16 because of knee injuries and then saw limited action a year ago. Still, Charles says he’s in good shape now and is ready to help the Jaguars reach their goal of playing in the Super Bowl.
“I feel good. Last year, I was trying to get back to feeling good and get back healthy again,” Charles told local media on Wednesday. “Now, I have been out for a while, but I have also had time to get my body right and get stronger and get healthy. I feel great.”
Bortles’ first year with the Jaguars was in 2014, the same time that Charles had his last productive season. But the Jaguars quarterback said he’s excited about having Charles be a part of the team and feels he still has the skill level to help the Jaguars.
“That is really my first experience playing with a guy like that that was playing and doing it at a high level while I was still in high school,” Bortles said. “I remember some of the unbelievable seasons when he was going off for what seems like every year for a ton of yards. To get a chance to now play with him and still see that even just being with him for a day and in nothing but helmets. You see the explosiveness, the juice, the cuts and the vision. We are excited to have him. I am fired up to watch him play.”
The Jaguars will need more than just Charles to help out an offense that continually shot itself in the foot last Sunday against the Chiefs. Sure the offense put up over 500 yards of offense but almost all of it came before they got close to the goal line. Seven times the Jaguars were 22 yards or closer to scoring but they only managed to push it into the end zone on two occasions. That’s a lot of points that were left off the scoreboard that were needed in a two-score, 16-point game.
Bortles offered his thoughts on what differentiates between the fast and slow starts the Jaguars have dealt with in recent weeks.
“It is just a lack of execution. Here is what we did. We did it all week. We ran this exact same play last week and this is what it did and it was successful. When we run it this week, whether it doesn’t work, someone makes a mistake, I missed a throw, it just doesn’t work,” Bortles said. “What it all comes down to is being consistent and execution of everything we do is the biggest part of it. Everything we do on Sunday is something we have repped in practice multiple times and believe in it and believe it is going to be successful. That is why [Offensive Coordinator] Nate [Hackett] is calling it and that is why we are running it in the game. I think anytime it doesn’t work is a poor decision on my part or a lack of execution anywhere.”
SERIES HISTORY: 7th regular-season meeting. Series tied, 3-3. The teams have only played once in last seven years. Last meeting was in London in 2014 with Cowboys posting a 31-17 win. Four of the six games in the series, including the first three, have been played in Dallas. Last such contest resulted in 35-17 Jaguars win on Oct. 31, 2010. Since 2002, teams have played each other once every four years.
