The off-season is a magical place for all 32 NFL teams. You could have been the worst team in the league the year before, but during the off-season, you’re tied for first place with the rest of the league. September is still months away, and every fan base is excited about their chances. Of course, the fans of some teams have more confidence in their optimism than others. The elite teams, like Green Bay, New England, and Carolina, don’t need to look very hard for reasons to get excited. They have MVP quarterbacks, and look to make noise yet again in 2016.
Some teams, however, haven’t enjoyed real success in a long time, if ever, and they’re hungry to break through that glass ceiling into the elite. Between free agency, the occasional blockbuster trade, and the NFL Draft, each team has a chance to improve every off-season. Every once in a while, magic happens and a team gets the right pieces. They spend big in free agency or have a big draft, and fans start getting excited.
This year, a great example of that is the Jacksonville Jaguars. Since their first game in 1995, the Jaguars have been a bit of a joke. They haven’t won the division since 1999, when it was the AFC Central, and they haven’t had a winning record since 2007. But lately, things have begun to change. Last season, the Jaguars only won five games, but they saw potential for something special. Despite having a disappointing season, quarterback Blake Bortles threw 35 touchdown passes, second only to Tom Brady. Not only did Bortles have a good season, but his two young receivers, Allen Hurns and Allen Robinson, both had over 1,000 yards and double digit touchdowns. With those pieces in place on offense, the Jaguars had the whole off-season to fix the defense.
And it certainly looks like they have on paper. They signed defensive end Malik Jackson, safety Tashaun Gipson, and cornerback Prince Amukamara to shore up the defense in free agency. That’s without mentioning what they’ve picked up through the draft. Last year’s first round pick, Dante Fowler Jr. was hurt before the season started, and then this year, they added defensive back Jalen Ramsey and linebacker Myles Jack. On paper, it certainly looks like the Jacksonville Jaguars are ready to make a big splash in the AFC South.
But the hype train needs to slow down a little bit. When Madden 17 hits stores, the Jacksonville Jaguars will have one of the best rosters in the game, but as the season progresses, that might change. There’s a reason that every fan base in the league is optimistic in August but only one is celebrating in February. Sometimes hype is just hype.
Tempering the Jacksonville Jaguars Hype
Shallow Statistics
While 4,400 yards and 35 yards are impressive quarterback numbers on paper, they’re a bit superficial. While Bortles threw for a lot of yards and touchdowns, he also threw plenty of interceptions. It’s easy to dismiss the 18 picks he threw because it was only his second season, but when you look deeper, you realize the bigger issue. Blake Bortles threw the ball 606 times last year, and only completed 355 of his passes. That gives him a completion percentage of 58.6, which was 31st in the league last year. His quarterback rating was only 88.2, which was 23rd in the league. When a quarterback is throwing the ball a lot, it only makes sense that all three categories will increase.
Why was Bortles throwing the ball so much in 2015? Well, as their 5-11 record showed, they weren’t very good. The Jaguar defense gave up 28 points a game. They gave up a lot of points, and often Bortles found himself playing from behind. Bortles only played two teams outside the AFC South that would make the playoffs, the Carolina Panthers and New England Patriots. And the Jaguars lost by a combined 45 points. Even in the games that the Jaguars won, they gave up a lot of points. The Jaguars won five games, but they gave up an average of 20 points in those games.
Bortles threw for at least three touchdowns a remarkable five times in 2015, and the Jaguars lost all but one of those games. Against the New Orleans Saints, Bortles would throw for four touchdowns, but ultimately his two interceptions would mean the difference in an 11 point loss. Against the Tennessee Titans in week 13, Bortles played his brains out, throwing for 322 yards and five touchdowns without a single interception, but the Jaguars still lost by three. His three touchdown passes against the Houston Texans in week 6 kept Jacksonville in the game, but his three interceptions are probably the reason they lost. And in a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he would throw four touchdowns, but the seven point loss might not have happened had it not been for an untimely interception.
Another problem is that despite giving up so many points and struggling, the Jaguars didn’t have a tough schedule. The AFC South is the worst division in football, and the Jaguars were swept by a Texans team that barely broke .500. 4,400 yards and 35 touchdowns are great for fantasy owners, but if we’re predicting which teams will be serious contenders next season, the data shows that while Blake Bortles was able to put up huge numbers, he did so inconsistently, against inferior talent, in garbage time.
Opportunity
Another reason that Bortles was such a huge part of the offense in 2015 was that the Jacksonville Jaguars weren’t very good at running the ball. They were 27th in the league, and didn’t even break 1,500 yards all season as a team. For perspective, Adrian Peterson rushed for 12 more yards by himself last year. Very few NFL teams can sustain drives without being able to run the ball. Even the likes of Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers struggle when all of the weight falls on their shoulders alone. It only makes sense that one of the league’s worst rushing teams would be forced to throw the ball more on offense. The Jaguars threw the ball 606 times last year, but only attempted to run 376 times. The Arizona Cardinals had a much healthier offense, rushing for almost 2,000 yards on 489 carries while also allowing Carson Palmer to have a MVP-like season.
Potential vs. Production
The Jacksonville Jaguars made some big moves in free agency this year, but it isn’t the first time they’ve done that. A couple of seasons ago, the Jaguars signed Red Bryant and Chris Clemons away from the Seattle Seahawks, thinking that head coach Gus Bradley could recreate his defense from the Super Bowl. Bryant spent 2015 with the Arizona Cardinals, Clemons is back with the Seahawks, and together they only combined for 12 sacks in Jacksonville. Free agency is always a crap-shoot, and every team makes mistakes, but it remains to be seen whether the newest veterans can succeed.
Meanwhile, the Jaguar cubs have a lot to prove. Jack and Ramsey were both considered top ten players heading into this draft, but the NFL is, quite literally, a completely different league than the college game. Plenty of players have entered the league, highly touted as “safe” or “the next big thing” only to fail to make an impact and be labeled a bust. Beyond that, all three star youngsters have injury problems. Fowler missed all of last season, there are conflicting reports about the severity of Jack’s knee injury, and Ramsey has already suffered a small meniscus tear.
The Schedule
Unlike 2015, the 2016 Jacksonville Jaguars schedule is no joke. They open the season against the Green Bay Packers, have to travel to Kansas City to play the Chiefs, play the defending NFC North Champion Minnesota Vikings, and host the defending Super Bowl Champion Denver Broncos. This is without mentioning that the AFC South will see the returns of quarterbacks Marcus Mariota and Andrew Luck, and that the Houston Texans have only gotten better in the off-season. The Baltimore Ravens and Oakland Raiders have also had great off-seasons and are vying to be contenders in the same conference as the Jaguars. There really aren’t any games on the schedule that are obviously wins for Jacksonville.
Bottom Line
This isn’t to say that the Jacksonville Jaguars can’t be every bit as good in reality as they are on paper in 2016, but it’s time to cool it with all the hype. So far it looks like they had a very good draft, they added some strong pieces in free agency, and they have pieces to build around. The Jacksonville Jaguars are most definitely going to be better in 2016 than they were in 2015, but before anyone crowns them as the AFC champions, we need to take a step back and look at them honestly. Before we name contenders out of a team that hasn’t a winning record in ten years, we to see them play first.
