Strangely enough for a sports writer covering the Minnesota Vikings, I’ve actually lived my whole life within a two-hour radius of Jacksonville, Fla. I have a lot of family in Jacksonville, who I love dearly despite my disdain for their city. Even as I’ve moved back and forth from Central and North Florida, Jacksonville has always remained a stone’s throw away. It’s like the miasma of smog, dirt, and cigarettes that permeates Duval County is keeping me trapped within its relative orbit the way it’s trapped every person from my cousin’s high school from ever leaving that dump.
Inter-Floridian trash talk aside, my point is that I’m quite familiar with the plight of Jaguars football. I have friends and family who have begged for a team worth their enthusiasm for years, and I’ve watched far too many sad Jaguars games because they were the local broadcast on a given Sunday.
This Jaguars team is different from many of the squads of the past, though. They legitimately have talent! In some draft classes, Brian Thomas Jr. would be a legitimate Offensive Rookie of the Year candidate. Tank Bigsby has emerged as a productive and powerful runner. Trevor Lawrence still shows flashes of the generational prospect people touted him as coming out of Clemson.
The problem is, like so many Jacksonville teams before them, they’re completely undisciplined. They’re consistently inconsistent. Jaguars fans have no idea what to expect quarter to quarter, much less game to game.
Jacksonville’s offensive line goes through stretches where they can keep Lawrence upright and untouched for several series in a row, only to fall apart later. For all the exciting plays from guys like Thomas, the rest of the receiving corps are among league leaders in drops. And due in part to pressure in his face and drops from his receivers, it should shock no one that Lawrence has also struggled with consistency this season. That kind of play will get you beat — in seven of the last nine games, to be precise.
That said, they’ve also been plucky. They took the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles to the bitter end in back-to-back weeks, and they’ve shown a willingness to keep fighting late in games despite rumors of head coach Doug Pederson being on the hot seat.
That’s the risk of playing bad teams with good talent. You never know if you’ll catch them during the week when they happen to put all the pieces together for a long enough stretch to give you a headache. That said, no defensive coordinator in football will put more pressure on your ability to have everything aligned than Brian Flores.
We’ve seen it repeatedly this season. This Vikings defense demands that you stay calm amidst the chaos, orderly amongst the disorderly. It tests your discipline and your ability to execute during high-leverage situations. The answer to the Flores defense is often fairly simple: attack the flats or hit the open crosser over the middle. The problem isn’t that it requires a complicated answer; however, you must execute it perfectly while doing everything possible to throw yourself into post-snap disarray.
It’s like giving you a test on your elementary school multiplication tables in an active war zone. Any competent offense should be able to ace that test, but not many offenses can ace that test when the bullets are flying.
So, are the Jaguars disciplined enough to get the right answers when the bullets are flying?
History would say it’ll be a tall task. After trading Cam Robinson to Minnesota, their already middling offensive line is now a man down and trying to turn Walker Little, a career backup/swing tackle, into their starting blindside protector. Their game plan will be heavily dependent on good communication and assignment sound football up front, and the recent turnover certainly doesn’t help that.
They’re also beat up. Lawrence, Tank Bigsby, Gabe Davis, Travis Etienne, and Brian Thomas Jr. are on the injury report and were limited participants on Wednesday. Meanwhile, both starting guards Ezra Cleveland and Brandon Scherff were DNPs on Wednesday and could exacerbate any communication issues up front against Flores’ pass rush.
And while things are still very much up in the air at the time I’m writing this, the tweet below from Ian Rapoport calls into question whether the Jaguars will hold out the former No. 1-overall pick entirely. If that happens, Pederson will try to piece things together with Mac Jones under center.
Jones was not the savior of an ailing New England Patriots franchise. Still, he was far from completely imploding in Massachusetts. He’s an ideal backup quarterback capable of playing within a system and acting like he belongs on an NFL field for a short stint. That billing is one Pederson is desperately hoping Jones can live up to on Sunday if called upon.
Pederson has an offensive pedigree worthy of respect, and he will be coaching with his job on the line on Sunday regardless of who’s under center. But good coaching doesn’t just mean drawing up the right plays. It also means instructing all 11 guys to execute that play properly.
This franchise is begging for consistency and discipline, and they will face their most daunting test this Sunday. If they can pass that test, this could be a close game. If they don’t, we’ve seen how ugly things can get against this Vikings defense this season.
