–After winning three of four games the month of September, the Jaguars were winless in both October and November. Now they’re hoping that they can finish with a flurry and possibly close out the season with a five-game winning streak in December. They were victorious in the first of their five December games when they posted a 6-0 win over Indianapolis last Sunday. But after winning for the first time in eight weeks, the Jaguars won’t have any time to bask in their first home shutout in 12 years. Their only prime-time appearance of the season takes place on Thursday when they travel to Tennessee to take on the Titans.
For Cody Kessler, victorious in his first start with the Jaguars last week, he’s glad it’s a quick turnaround.
“You get to play again early,” Kessler said about the Thursday game. “I’m excited. I’m ready to get back out there. Obviously, to get that first win felt great, but there are a lot of things that I want to improve and as an offense, we want to continue to do. Me and (newly-christened offensive coordinator) Scott Milanovich both kind of talked after the game like, ‘Hey, we’ll get to know each other better. We’ll get more comfortable.’
“We both will improve and that’s something that we get to do early this week and get back out there.”
After the win over the Colts, Kessler went to Jaguars cornerback Jalen Ramsey and told him that he will play better the next time out. Kessler explained his thinking about the statement on Tuesday when he met with local media.
“When the defense holds them to zero, you want to put up touchdowns. You want to score points and as the quarterback of an offense, that’s on me first,” Kessler said. “There is stuff that we want to improve on and you want to give them (the defense) the comfort level of them knowing, ‘Hey, they’re going to go out there and score some points.’ That’s something that we want to improve on this week.”
–The Jaguars trio of defensive tackles – Marcell Dareus, Abry Jones and Malik Jackson – have made life difficult for opposing teams’ guards and center. It’s a trio that has size, strength and finesse and is a group that has made it tough on opposing teams to run up the middle. This group will now encounter a Tennessee interior offensive line that has struggled at times this year.
The Titans are solid at the two tackle spots with Pro Bowl left tackle Taylor Lewan and All-Pro right tackle Jack Conklin on the other side. But in between, it’s been nothing short of a disaster for the Colts. In last Sunday’s game against the Jets, left guard Quinton Spain was yanked, center Ben Jones slid to the left to replace Spain and Corey Levin was inserted at center in place of Jones. But the Jets were still able to register three sacks in the game, leaving Tennessee on pace to surrender the most sacks in a single season since the franchise moved to Nashville in 1997.
“Just kind of something I felt like needed to be done at that time,” Titans head coach Mike Vrabel said. “That might change each week but I wanted to try to get Corey in at center and see what Ben looked like at left guard.”
Opposing teams have been able to get to Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota. He’s been sacked 11 times in the past three games and overall has been dropped 42 times for minus-253 yards. The sack total ranks 31st in the NFL this week.
But the Jaguars haven’t gotten to opposing quarterbacks nearly like they did a year ago. Through the first 12 games, Jacksonville has recorded just 24 sacks, ranking 27th in the league. If they maintain that pace of two sacks per game, the Jaguars will finish with 32 sacks compared to the 55 they recorded last year in the regular season, second to only Pittsburgh (56) for the most sacks in the NFL.
–Anyone who wonders why NFL players watch so much tape leading up to their next game should talk to Jaguars defensive end Yannick Ngakoue. He gives credit to his tape-watching leading up to the Indianapolis Colts game Sunday as a major reason why the Jaguars were able to end their losing streak and post their first home shutout in 12 years.
The play that helps verify Ngakoue’s claim came in a Colts’ lengthy first-half drive that stretched from the Colts’ 37 and reached the Jaguars 1-yard line. It was a 17-play series that took 7:50 to complete and ended with the Colts first converting a field goal, then taking the points off the board due to a Jaguars penalty, but eventually leaving the Colts with no points when they failed to convert on a fourth-and-goal play from the 1-yard line.
On the final play, Andrew Luck threw a shovel pass toward the middle of the field to tailback Jordan Wilkins who had started the play adjacent to Luck. The play was designed to leave Ngakoue unblocked with the idea that he would rush towards Luck and leave an opening. But Ngakoue read the play and stayed home and had a good angle to hit Wilkins and drop him for no gain.
When asked about the play after the game, Ngakoue said the NFL is a “copy-cat” league and he remembered to expect that play in the red zone after seeing it so many times on tape. The play was of course a huge momentum swing for the Jaguars. It prevented the Colts from scoring what would have been the game’s only touchdown and what would likely have resulted in a one-point Colts win had Ngakoue not watched so much tape leading up to the game.
BY THE NUMBERS: 50 — The Jaguars have held opponents to fewer than 50 rushing yards in three games this season, tied for the most such games of any team in the NFL with New Orleans and Baltimore.
