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Jacksonville Jaguars' Doug Pederson: If we clean this one area up, we'll win close games
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- Jacksonville Jaguars' Doug Pederson: If we clean this one area up, we'll win close games
Jacksonville Jaguars coach Doug Pederson said on Monday that his team is agonizingly close to turning the corner in the close games they've lost this season, such as Sunday's 28-23 setback at Philadelphia in which the offense had the ball with a first down at the Eagles ' 13 with 1:42 left, only to lose it on Trevor Lawrence's second interception of the game on a pass to third-team running back D'Ernest Johnson.
The Jaguars (2-7) have lost five games by five or fewer points and fell to the Eagles and Packers, two perennial NFC contenders, by a combined eight points.
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - NOVEMBER 03: Head coach Nick Sirianni of the Philadelphia Eagles and head coach Doug Pederson of the Jacksonville Jaguars hug after Philadelphia's 28-23 win at Lincoln Financial Field on November 03, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
"It does encourage you that you can play with these guys," Pederson said at the Miller Electric Center. "You eliminate a few mistakes, we don't give them 13 points off the turnovers, the week before we don't give them 14 points off the turnovers, thing could be different. That's the part that we have to, as a team, we have to overcome, we have to eliminate and I think it gives us a better chance."
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In other issues:
Why the pass play called to Johnson, that was picked off?
"At the end of the day, it was a heck of a play [by Philadelphia's Nakobi Dean], a heck of a play. The coaching side comes down and says, 'we can detail the route a little better.' It is a route that's been in our offense a long time. [Travis] Etienne had similar routes during the game. We can tell Trevor to just throw it away. Live for second down. But I would say Nakobi Dean made a heck of a football play."
Did you second-guess yourself on the play call?
"Obviously, on a Monday you can sit in here and watch the tape with calmer eyes and shoulda, coulda, woulda, right? You play that game with yourself all the time. Trust me. That's what beats you up as a coach. You go back and replay it, and we could have done this or we could have done that. Lot of times you're in the heat of the moment and you're trying to score but at the same time you're trying to reduce the clock a little bit.
Nakobe Dean of the Philadelphia Eagles comes down with an interception of a Trevor Lawrence pass in his own end zone to preserve a 28-23 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Nov. 4 at Lincoln Financia Field. The intended receiver was D'Ernest Johnson.
"You look at those situations, could you run the ball there? Certainly. Certainly. But you're taking time off the clock but you're also risking maybe second-and-10, second-and-12. You play mental gymnastics all day. The longer you're in this business, the longer you coach it, the longer you play it ... I think every coach goes through and I think every player goes through it. It's not exact. It's not perfect. Guys battle. We had guys play tough, played hurt. Sometimes guys play out of position because we ask them to. We need them to. In those moments we're just trying to win the game."
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With the recent slow starts on offense, why not go up-tempo earlier?
"I hear it all the time, 'why don't you go up-tempo?' The downside is you are on the field for 30 seconds and you're putting the football. The upside is you're getting you quarterback in a rhythm, you get your offense in a rhythm and you potentially end up with three or seven points. The other thing is first down. If you want to go up-tempo you better get positive yards on first down. If it's incomplete and it's second-and-10, or you run and it's second-and-12, it's kind of hard to go up-tempo after that ... just getting positive, getting the drive started, right?"
Why did Brian Thomas Jr., get only four targets and Brenton Strange none?
"If you watch the football game and not follow the ball, you will see what Philly did in normal-down situations, some on third down. They had a corner and a safety so they basically doubled BT and it's hard to throw the ball there to a guy that's doubled. You have to go other places with the ball. That was part of their game plan. What we had seen during the week and scouting ... they didn't necessarily present those coverages and so you have to make an adjustment during the game.
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"In Brenton's case, I think it's probably more on us [the coaches] to not get him more involved. But I think, too, when you look at this game, some of the struggles of staying efficient on first down, some of the second down stuff just kind of takes you a little bit out of rhythm and the flow of game just a little bit. We had opportunities, we had about four or five third-and-fours in this game and we don't capitalize. Those are things that have haunted us."
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville Jaguars' Doug Pederson: Here's what's holding us back
