Fear the Jaguars defense, the NFL’s nastiest unit
By Josh Hill
The Jacksonville Jaguars are an enigma wrapped in a riddle trapped in Blake Bortles pocket.
Missed opportunities kill a team when the game is on the line. Whether it’s a missed kick or a whiffed block, missing your shot is a sure-fire way to ensure heartbreak.
For the Jacksonville Jaguars, their missed opportunity has a name and it’s Blake Bortles. The Jags went on the road to Pittsburgh and shellacked the Steelers in a game that suddenly makes us all question the legitimacy of Mike Tomlin’s squad.
But to do that is to aggressively disservice the job the Jaguars defense did on its own. This wasn’t a case where Ben Roethlisberger threw a bunch of bad throws or the team committed a slew of errors. When the Jaguars defense and Steelers offense was on the field, it was clear who the better unit was and it wasn’t even close.
Jacksonville’s defense is an elite unit, and it’s time to recognize.
It wasn’t Bortles that led the Jaguars on two touchdown drives to take a 20-9 lead on the road, it was the defense. Two pick-sixes turned the tide, and it’s absolutely fitting that it happened that way.
Imagine what the Jaguars would be if Bortles wasn’t an anchor weighing the team down. The answer might be in the draft next spring, but it’s certainly not on the roster. Bortles nor Chad Henne are going to cut it, which is a damn shame since #Sacksonville morphed into #PickSixonville en route to a win that might get the season back on track.
Of course, the sobering reality of the situation is that Bortles is still the quarterback which handcuffs the team’s potential. When the Jaguars took a 20-9 lead, Bortles had 95 yards of passing and an interception — that’s it. Jacksonville recorded 10-sacks
Stats like those are pretty much par for the course with Bortles. Meanwhile, Jacksonville’s defense has been moving in the other direction with no regard for human life. The unit recorded 10-sacks in Week 1, almost shutout the Ravens in Week 3 and took a blow torch the Steelers offense on Sunday afternoon. Ben Roethlisberger was picked off 5-times on Sunday, what more do the Jaguars have to do to be taken seriously as a top defense in football?
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It’s tragic that the depressing cloud of suck known as Blake Bortles overshadows most of this, but that doesn’t take it away. The Jaguars defense is an elite, top-tier unit and is something fans should be very happy about.