Week 4 Shutouts

Offense

Toby Gerhart

This season really isn't going as well as we had hoped for Gerhart. Through four games he has only rushed for 114 yards and he averages less than 3 yards per rush. As always, the offensive line is also partially to blame, but week after week Gerhart struggles to get anything going. This week he rushed for 32 yards and a touchdown, but the only time he gained more than 5 yards he fumbled the football. His stat line should essentially read 22 yards on 9 carries, putting him yet again under 3 yards per carry. This week's game also had Bortles open up the passing game more, so the excuse of defenses focusing on the run really doesn't work either. It's only been four weeks, but we've already seen Gerhart go from "bell cow" to almost being in a timeshare with Denard Robinson. It isn't time to give up on Gerhart at this point, but going forward I expect him to lose more time to Robinson until he can prove he can handle a full work load, if that time comes.

Mike Brown

Now that Ace Sanders is coming back Brown should be cut soon. He might last until Marquise Lee has fully recovered from his injury, but he hasn't been playing well enough with how deep our receiving corps is at this point. He still struggles with catching the football which was pretty evident against the Chargers. He dropped a wide open pass late in the game and had another that might have been considered a drop if a penalty wasn't called. Brown has been able to make some plays in the past but I think its just about time to move on.

Jedd Fisch

I don't think any other players really stood put as exceptionally bad this week. The only other person to be a detriment to our offense was Jedd Fisch. He never really opened up the playbook for Bortles and it kind of handcuffed our offense from making big plays. I understand wanting to get your rookie QB's confidence up in his first start, but by half time they should have seen he was ready to take more shots down field. When a quarterback completes nearly 80% of his passes but still averages less than 7 yards an attempt, it points to either conservative play calls or a conservative quarterback. Bortles doesn't seem to be the type of player to check down every throw, especially considering even on the short routes he will still try to fit the ball in tight windows. Next week we are playing a Steelers defense with a depleted secondary, so hopefully the coaching staff can gain a little trust that Bortles can make something happen down the field.

Defense

Winston Guy

Guy was only in the game for one play last week but that was still enough for him to bite hard and then get burned by Eddie Royal for a touchdown. He was cut earlier in the week so i won't dwell on it too long, but it was third and long and if he didn't try to undercut Royal's route there was a good chance the Chargers would have failed to convert and punted the ball. Instead, they get a touchdown late in the half allowing them to build momentum going into halftime. Craig Loston has been signed off the Jaguar's practice squad to try and help the secondary, but he seems to be a player that excels more in the box and probably won't contribute too much in coverage.

Philip Rivers

Rivers was more detrimental to our defense than any player on the Jaguars roster. There were a some missed assignments and blown coverage, but Rivers was able to exploit these weaknesses easily which made it harder on the secondary. He is playing at an MVP level so far this year so it shouldn't have been a surprise he was able to shred our secondary. Players seem to try to do too much to counteract River's play and it led to some of the big plays we saw. I don't think we have a bad secondary, they are just young and inexperienced against good quarterbacks. They end up over-adjusting for certain players and it ends up worse than it should be. If players could just stick to their role in pass coverage I think it would be more successful. It's a lot easier for me to say this than it is to actually do it, but I think that our defense can continue to grow as a unit and we should see better results sooner rather than later.