Jacksonville Jaguars Defense Still Working Through Issues Defending the Pass

Last year, the Jacksonville Jaguars defense was on the rise. 

After a brutal start, the Jaguars finished 28th in Football Outsiders' defensive DVOA in 2013 and 22nd in the Adjusted DVOA that focuses less on the beginning of the season. The Jags allowed a single-game defensive DVOA above 12 percent just twice in the second half of the season, as opposed to five times in the first nine weeks. The run defense was lockdown and the passing defense was showing signs of improvement.

This year, despite another offseason to presumably grow, there has been little good done by the Jacksonville pass defense. 

Game	Defensive DVOA	Pass D DVOA	Run D DVOA
@ PHI	-19.9%	-30.5%	-5.6%
v. WAS	24.4%	45.4%	6.6%
v. IND	29.1%	55.3%	-11.8%
@ SD	24.6%	56.3%	-40.0%

Look at the carnage done here. The Jaguars were able to keep a solid number against the Eagles. Of course, according to Chris Brown of Smart Football/Grantland fame, who has a doctorate in Chip Kelly studies, this was the game where quarterback Nick Foles left approximately 800 points on the field. 

"

Another inexcusable miss by Foles throwing behind Matthews on trips 4 verts. PHI had guys like this open all day pic.twitter.com/tcSysehUfX

— Chris B. Brown (@smartfootball) September 10, 2014"

So, I wanted to figure out what was wrong with the defense. I popped open Game Rewind, looked at every play they've allowed of 20 yards or longer this season and tried to see what exactly was going on here. Here's that chart:

Reason	Number
Winston Guy	5
Linebacker depth	4
Great route combo from other team	4
Demetrius McCray	3
Other Players	3
Dwayne Gratz	2
Andrew Luck is a Witch	1

Here are my observations: 

1. Safety Winston Guy and cornerback Demetrius McCray are obvious weaknesses

Guy was benched after Week 3, perhaps because head coach Gus Bradley realized that having a safety that had a magnetic attraction to turning his hips the wrong way was a bad idea. But Bradley just couldn't stop himself, and he put Guy in for one play against the Chargers. One Eddie Royal touchdown later, after Guy had fallen behind in coverage, general manager David Caldwell had to go ahead and release Guy to save Bradley from himself. 

Bad coach, bad! You don't get to keep Guy on the roster if you use him at safety. 

The other problem is that, with cornerback Dwayne Gratz out of commission due to a concussion, the Jaguars have had to turn to Demetrius McCray outside. If you weren't aware of McCray's work last season, he managed to quickly play so poorly early in the season that the Jaguars turned back to Mike Harris. 

McCray has already been beaten over the top twice on deep balls this season and has struggled getting proper depth on his drops. There may be some physical upside here, but McCray is rapidly approaching the Guy Zone. 

Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press

2. Proper depth from linebackers is a problem

The Jaguars are trying to run the defense that Seattle currently runs. Seattle has Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright covering the middle of the field at linebacker. The Jaguars have Paul Posluszny. 

That's not to say that Posluszny is a bad player. He's heady, instinctual and a good run defender. He's just so slow that he can't be relied on in zone coverage. To boot, I saw him taking an awful long look at the quarterback on some of these big gains, and by the time he realizes where the ball is going, it's already over his head. 

The Jaguars have some linebackers who should be good in these roles. 

Player	Coverage Rating (2013)	Coverage Rating (2014)
Paul Posluszny	-2.7	-1.3
Geno Hayes	5.1	-3.2
Telvin Smith	2014 Rookie	-1.7
LaRoy Reynolds	2.4	-1.7
Dekoda Watson	0.0	-0.7
J.T. Thomas	-5.2	-0.3

But Geno Hayes has played poorly, according to Pro Football Focus, and was always more of a stopgap. 2014 fifth-rounder Telvin Smith should eventually be a solution but has fought growing pains on the field so far. 

It's hard to have a good pass defense when you can't keep the middle of the field choked. So far, the Jaguars are more donut than donut hole.

---

Jacksonville has also been afflicted by the rise of Cover 3. As teams have gotten more familiar with it, they'll run patterns that aim to defeat it. Alfie Crow of Big Cat Country had a nice look at the routes San Diego ran to defeat the Jacksonville coverage last game. 

Mix those issues in with the more typical mistakes: biting on play action, having Andrew Luck use his witchcraft and inexplicable random coverage breakdowns. Those all go together to create the defense Jacksonville has seen so far. 

Over time, as the Jaguars blend less Guy, McCray and (hopefully) Posluszny, things should get a little better. I don't think the scheme is getting dominated at the moment. Playing less effective quarterbacks and schemes will help it as well. 

But there's still a long way to go before the Jaguars can say their defense is anywhere near fixed. The middle of this defense badly needs a talent infusion. 

Rivers McCown is the AFC South lead writer for Bleacher Report. His work has also appeared on Football Outsiders and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter at @riversmccown.