Dissecting the Jaguars' Offense: What Went Wrong in Enemy Territory?

Early in the season, many said, “Once the Jaguars offense gets on the same page, they’ll be great!.” Unfortunately for Duval County, that time never came. In some ways, the offense even regressed as injuries, turnovers and a non-existent run game plagued the team’s second half of the schedule.

Something that was way too consistent throughout the 2023 season was the Jaguars struggles inside enemy territory. Whether it was turnovers, missed field goals or the end of a half, the Jaguars simply left far too many points on the field time and time again. It seemed almost habitual.

Let’s look back on the 2023 season and see just how many missed scoring opportunities there were. I’ll play spoiler, it isn’t pretty. I decided to go through the team’s regular season schedule, charting every single drive that entered the opponent’s territory.

In total, the Jaguars had 118 drives cross the 50-yard line. Hey, that’s not bad. On average, per game, Jacksonville had seven drives go inside the opposing side of the field. That alone puts the season into perspective for Jacksonville. The results of those drives, however, were far less inspiring and quite damning.

Well, what happened? Each drive’s result was filed into one of seven categories: TD, FG, Missed FG, Punt, INT, Fumble, Turnover on Downs, and Other.

First, let’s look at scoring. 

The Jaguars were able to score 36 touchdowns and 30 field goals on those drives, scoring on about 56% of drives. Touchdowns and field goals did finish as the two most abundant results for a drive entering the opponent's territory as they should. That figure of 56% is just downright abhorrent.

An additional 6% of their drives ended in missed field goals as Brandon McManus missed seven field goals on the season. He had a fairly solid season but a string of misses in the second half of the season killed his stellar start.

If 56% of the time the Jaguars scored and another 6% can be attributed to missed field goals, where’s the other 38% gone? Please keep all hands, feet, arms and legs inside the ride at all times! It’s going to be bumpy.

The Jaguars punted 10 times or about 8.5% of the time. That’s not that crushing, Logan Cooke’s among the best ever at his position and can pin the opponent inside their own 20-yard line with ease. Another 6 drives (5%) ended by way of regulation. Some of these were kneel downs, some successful attempts to run out the clock and others were easy points gone wrong.

The end of the first game head-scratcher against the Ravens would fit into this category as the Jaguars attempted to run an extra play to score but were tackled with time expiring. Five plays, 55 yards, and zero points.

Now we get to the heart of the issue, turnovers. Whether it was by way of fumbling, interceptions, or turnover on downs, they simply occurred too often. The Jaguars turned the ball over 29 times over the course of the season when in the opponent’s domain. They turned the ball over 25% of the time, 25%!

Jacksonville’s offense was intercepted seven times, fumbled 9 times, and turned it over on downs an astounding 13 times (11%). That last figure can no doubt, in-part, be attributed to the team’s abysmal rushing attack, which averaged 2.2 yards per attempt in short-yardage scenarios. The passing attack didn’t fare much better in those situations as the Jaguars had a combined 59.8 NFL Rating when needing three yards or less.

It certainly doesn’t help that the team finished 17th in 3rd-Down rate (38.2%) with an even worse EPA of -0.13 (25th) on late downs (3rd+4th Down). Once the team got into the redzone, not much changed either. The Jaguars’ red zone efficiency of 50% was also not inspiring, ranking 21st.

Jaguars’ Doug Pederson says much of the season’s disappointment can be attributed to the turnovers.

“I think it’s the biggest thing that he has to focus on moving forward. We just can’t have this amount of turnovers, how we turn the ball over, where we turn the ball over, it doesn’t matter. We got to protect the football, that’s the number one thing. I think we’re going to probably end up No. 29, 30, 31 somewhere down there in giveaways. That also doesn’t take into consideration the turnover on downs, too. Those are giveaways as well,” said Pederson

Pederson was right on the money. Jacksonville finished in 28th with 30 giveaways, a disappointing figure considering the defense forced 27, 8th in takeaways. The opportunity was there to take advantage of a large turnover differential. Unfortunately, they still finished in the negative with three more giveaways than takeaways.

It seems the coaching staff believes that the turnovers and tackling were the main contributing factors as to why this team ultimately faltered down the final stretch of the season. The defense wasn’t forcing turnovers like they once had and missed assignments and tackles had become more frequent. These are some reasons as to why defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell was ultimately let go following the conclusion of the 2023 season.

That said, while turnovers and tackling were issues, there are some deeper reasoning as to why this team struggled. So many failed short-yardage scenarios and Travis Etienne’s pedestrian 3.8 YPC can be attributed to poor run-blocking from one of the league’s highest-paid offensive lines. Without the ability to run, more stress is placed onto the back of your quarterback to make plays in a system once predicated on its balance.

The road in front of the Jacksonville Jaguars won’t be without adversity as the franchise’s front office and coaching staff work together to get the most out of the roster and its shortening Super Bowl window. Last year’s offseason left much to be desired so fans must hope the team has learned from its past mistakes to give the Jaguars the best chance for success going forward.