Week 2 Shutouts

Disclaimer: I unfortunately suffered from a concussion last weekend, I am writing this article the best I can but potentially my thoughts might seem cluttered.

The Offense

Chad Henne

Let's start with the most obvious, and also the most frustrating. Henne completed just 50% of his passes for 193 yards, 60% of which game on two plays. He was sacked 10 times, the majority of which he at least partially contributed to by holding onto the ball to long. I think it was pretty clear that he had a bad game and its hard to see why the Jaguars keep putting him out on the field each week. The entire game was riddled with bad passes and errors by Henne, the worst of which coming on a 4th quarter interception where he stared down Allen Hurns from the start of the play, allowing the safety to read and jump the route. Some benefit of the doubt can be given due to a few key drops and sub-par line play, but after two weeks it is already apparent that Henne isn't up to the task of leading the team.

The Offensive Line

Just as obviously bad as Henne, the offensive line had a poor game pretty much all around. The struggles in both the run and pass blocking have already been detailed here and here, so I won't go into too much detail. The main woes came in the run blocking which has been the case since week one of the preseason. The Jaguars only called seven designed run plays, but each of them had missed assignments and failed blocks that made it so Gerhart was never able to get going. It continues to be clear that something needs to be improved, but unfortunately it looks like nothing is able to be done until the offseason.

Toby Gerhart

Nine touches, 17 yards. For a player that was supposed to help carry the offense he hasn't been able to show that ability in the first two weeks. He hasn't had any help from the O-line and he really didn't have opportunities to get the ball, so it isn't entirely on him, but it's hard to try and justify his performance so far. As with multiple other parts of the team, Gerhart needs to prove he can produce and that he is worth the contract given to him this past offseason.

The Defense

The Secondary

Unfortunately a lot of the same things keep popping up as issues for the Jaguars. Yet again the secondary seemed lost without Johnathan Cyprien roaming around back there. As I mentioned earlier, Josh Evans was a nice bright spot and showed good improvement, but overall the unit just could not get the job done. Multiple times the Redskin's receivers were able to find soft spots in the Jaguar's coverage and Kirk Cousins was able to deliver the ball where it needed to be. It wasn't all that hard considering all he had to do was throw it in the vicinity of his receivers and the defense still wouldn't have a chance to stop them. Probably the worst performer was Dwayne Gratz, who let up multiple big plays and was even benched for a time. It's disappointing to see after he put up a good performance in week one, but he still appears to be growing into his role and hopefully this game won't set him back too far.

Run Defense

Apologies for listing defensive units instead of players, but when the entire defense performs how they did last week its hard to put the blame all on one player. The Redskin's running backs were able to relentlessly pound the defense for 191 yards and three touchdowns on 42 carries. The Jaguars seemed to have no answer for whoever the Redskins had in, and multiple times they were able to gash the defense for multiple 10+ yard carries. There were missed assignments, missed tackles, and bad angles by many of the Jaguars players.

The Jaguars were beat in every aspect of the game this week and it is hard to see it getting better anytime soon. It was hard to find the good points and there were too many poor performances to single out a few players. Here's hoping the team can turn it around and that this game will be the turning point before good things start happening.