The Jaguars are 0–4, closing in on a doubtful 20-game franchise shedding streak. Their head coach, Urban Meyer, has misplaced solely 4 or more video games in a season twice in a prolonged teaching profession that has spanned greater than 20 years.
There are occasions this season when Jacksonville has seemed utterly adrift on the sphere. Week 1 in opposition to the Texans was, unquestionably, the product of a collegiate head coach’s underestimating the intense intricacy and perfection essential to defeat even one of many worst groups within the NFL (one which, in some methods, appears to be actively making an attempt to lose). Whereas I don’t assume Broncos head coach Vic Fangio, who defeated Meyer in Week 2, was being malicious when he revealed that Meyer instructed him “Every week it’s like playing Alabama in the NFL,” I do assume that having the quote exist in a public house supplied a little bit of schadenfreude for the hordes of NFL coaches who probably felt a bit of chapped by Meyer’s methodical entry into the skilled soccer house. It appeared like a becoming slip from a coach who entered big-time soccer with the Baltimore Stars in 1984 and took greater than 30 years to get a head teaching gig.
The Jaguars’ early season has traversed a path to this fascinating level the place a workforce we thought may need been higher—presumably a fringe playoff workforce like Andrew Luck’s rookie-year Colts—has already misplaced video games to a number of the worst opponents on its schedule and now faces a brutal slate wherein it’ll encounter the Titans, Payments, Seahawks and 49ers earlier than Thanksgiving, in addition to some much less intimidating however equally perilous matchups in opposition to defensive masterminds like Brian Flores and a Colts workforce that's winless for now however could not keep dormant for lengthy. If Meyer had a troublesome time matching schematic acumen with the likes of David Culley and Zac Taylor, then Frank Reich, Sean McDermott and Kyle Shanahan will trigger some issues.
Meyer coaches for one of the vital pragmatic possession teams in soccer, however failing to indicate any important enchancment over the course of this subsequent stretch of video games ought to problem the Khan philosophy, even after it introduced the workforce to the brink of Tremendous Bowl rivalry. I’ll go so far as to say that this subsequent stretch of video games is likely to be one of the vital essential within the historical past of the franchise from a developmental standpoint.
This isn't some hyperbole; it’s only a recognition that Meyer ought to be given more of a runway if the Jaguars play effectively in opposition to their subsequent few opponents and will, rightfully, significantly, be thought-about a one-and-done candidate if the workforce flounders. Thursday evening’s loss to the Bengals was sophisticated in that the efficiency was Jacksonville’s better of the season. If the Jags had been in a position to maintain their scripted first half, we’d be speaking a couple of coach with far much less strain on his again.
The downside with a sober analysis of Meyer at this level is that Jacksonville’s struggles are nearly everybody’s fault, making a little bit of a cyclical chart of blame. The Jags are additionally battling the ingrained perceptions now we have of each Lawrence and Meyer within the collegiate house, the place they've been fast, plain winners.
Lawrence has accomplished a number of the most lovely throws of the season, which obscures the moments when he’s missed an open learn on a well-designed play, like most rookies will do sometimes. Darrell Bevell has known as some dangerous soccer this 12 months and has put Lawrence in disadvantageous spots, together with the time he has spent gobbling route ideas as a consequence of Lawrence’s excessive soccer acumen and apparent arm expertise. However Bevell can also be nowhere close to the worst play-caller a rookie quarterback has inherited this 12 months and has truly drawn up some creative ideas to win matchups in opposition to a number of the higher defences within the league proper now. Jacksonville’s defence, which was starved this low season as a way to go well with Meyer’s wants for an offence befitting of Lawrence, went into Thursday evening’s recreation because the second-worst within the NFL, in accordance with Soccer Outsiders’ DVOA projections, which makes it troublesome to supply the offence with any further edge.
Meyer, clearly, sits atop this organizational chart and can inherit a majority of the blame. That is very true with a quarterback like Lawrence, who, in contrast to different rookies who could discover themselves smeared by a coach unable to develop them, is so clearly proficient and pro-ready that he possesses an unshakable place of energy throughout the franchise.
The concern is that pouring blind religion into his operation with this season quickly hurdling down the tubes will end in a harmful recreation of I alone can repair this heading into the commerce deadline. Jacksonville already traded its 2020 first-round decide, C.J. Henderson. Meyer might simply move off the inherited blame on the state of the roster and obtain a carte blanche on dealing a number of the workforce’s underperforming property in an effort to build up more draft capital.
Doing so would push Jacksonville additional down a path that might find yourself yielding nice outcomes, or sinking the whole lot of Lawrence’s rookie contract, which might be a devastating blow to the franchise. The Jaguars’ window of rivalry and relevance as a franchise opens subsequent 12 months, when Lawrence enters the second 12 months of his team-friendly, five-year cope with a 12 months of NFL expertise and knowledge underneath his belt. The workforce ought to once more be approaching $100 million in wage cap house and, not less than in the meanwhile, it possesses the No. 1 decide within the 2022 draft; a category that appears to be ripe with franchise-altering defensive expertise.
Whereas there are not any ensures in life, Jaguars possession might obtain a window into the long run over the approaching weeks by wanting intently sufficient. If the gradual enchancment continues—and there ought to be loads of impartial assets at their disposal to supply an evaluation on Meyer’s in-game teaching capacity, in addition to the efficiency of his assistants in opposition to outmatched competitors with out obscuring the details—they'll fall again on their default mode and prolong Meyer’s runway.
If, when met with a whiff of defeatism or dysfunction, power-grabbing or blame shedding, the primary indicators of one thing apart from a humbled coach studying the ropes, they could should do one thing that felt unthinkable just a few months in the past to avoid wasting themselves within the long-term.
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