Jaguars Secondary Fails in 2015, Will Need Additions for Next Season

Now that the Jacksonville Jaguars regular season is nearly finished, and the door to the playoffs has shut for good, it's becoming much easier to look back at the 2015 season to see what went right and what went wrong.

The answer to that is pretty obvious for the Jaguars, especially on the defensive side. Essentially, the only group that performed up to expectations and, honestly, above those expectations were the linebackers, but the defensive front and secondary were major liabilities on the other hand.

Which probably was the worst possible situation for the Jaguars defense. No pass rush and little resistance from the defensive backs open up plenty of space and opportunities for opposing offenses.

The defensive line does deserve credit for stopping the run with surprising consistency, and that's what they can hang their hat on. However, the secondary did little to warrant praise this season, and that's what solidified them as the Jaguars' worst positional group.

Game after game, quarterbacks have been able to find receivers with relative ease, and it often hasn't mattered if they were pressured or not, although the secondary has the valid complaint that there was no pressure in most games.

Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Coming into the season, the secondary was the primary concern. However, they were still young, and the Jaguars figured that the addition of CB Davon House and safety Sergio Brown would help sturdy the ship.

And while House has been a great addition with 21 passes defended and three interceptions, and Brown has been a loud locker-room presence, it obviously hasn't been enough, and hindsight makes it pretty easy to see that they weren't going to be close to the reinforcements the DBs needed.

It's hard to fault the Jaguars for sticking to their youthful guns, but the group has not delivered on that hope. When opposing QBs are averaging 269.9 yards per game, bad enough for 29th in the NFL, there's simply no excuse.

And it's not like they have offered any explosiveness either. The secondary has had four total interceptions this season, and, as mentioned, House had three of those. A singular interception between the remaining DBs isn't just bad, it's near unbelievable.

The gamble on younger players like CBs Dwayne Gratz, Demetrius McCray and Aaron Colvin, as well as safety Johnathan Cyprien, has been met with relatively empty results, no matter how promising they can appear.

Player	Tackles	Passes Defended	Interceptions
Dwayne Gratz	25	1	0
Davon House	53	21	3
Aaron Colvin	68	6	0
Demetrius McCray	25	1	0
Nick Marshall	11	1	0

Colvin and Cyprien have improved this season, but they are hardly NFL starting quality. Colvin offers a variety of abilities and skills, but he hasn't made the strides as a core corner to really warrant a starting job.

Cyprien has had moments of execution this season, and, for a while, appeared to be developing into the type of safety the Jaguars drafted him for. But like Colvin, the steps haven't warranted his current place on the depth chart.

McCray and Gratz have been simply hopeless, and Josh Evans hasn't been nearly consistent enough. None of these players were expected to be top-quality players, but it's hard to think that any of them would see the same amount of playing time for most other NFL teams.

The Jaguars hoped that, similar to the progress we saw with the offense, they would finally come into their own this season, but it's quickly become apparent that most of the current members of the secondary probably have a roster spot.

It will take a massive overhaul to save this secondary, and the Jaguars will probably look to keep House, Cyprien, Colvin, James Sample and possibly one other as the base. But other than that, the Jaguars should actively be planning for a major revamp.

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Evan Reier is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the Jacksonville Jaguars. Follow Evan on Twitter @evanreier.