Early bye weeks stink, but Jaguars need a break

Typically as an NFL team, you want your bye week to fall somewhere in the middle of the season, giving you a break sometime between Week 8 through Week 11. Just enough time mid-season to give you a refresh and an extra week of recovery for that late season push. For the Jacksonville Jaguars, they get their bye week after just four games because of their annual trip to London.

That's not ideal, but in a way it benefits the Jaguars because they're a little banged up right now.

The team saw Luke Joeckel go down with an injury early in Sunday's 30-27 win and he never even came back to the sideline. I would guess we get an update on his status on Tuesday afternoon when Jaguars head coach Gus Bradley meets with the media before releasing the players for their break, but my assumption is that it's probably not good for Joeckel. The extra week will give the Jaguars time to assess not only Joeckel's injury and how they'll replace him, but for some of the other guys nursing injuries too.

Tight end Julius Thomas missed the game with an elbow injury, but he was a game time decision. Defensive lineman Jared Odrick didn't make the trip, dealing with a triceps and veteran tight end Marcedes Lewis left the game with an injury. Not to mention that linebackers Dan Skuta missed the game and Hayes Pullard missed practice time during the week leading up.

You also have Chris Ivory still coming back from a medical issue that caused him to miss the first two games of the season.

The extra time not only gives the Jaguars a little bit extra to get some players healthy, but it also gives them time to make some adjustments to both the offense and defense after the first quarter of the season. The team was finally able to run the ball on Sunday, in part because they seemed to scrap all the stretch plays and zone runs and go more to a power running game, so it wouldn't be a big shock to see the extra week spent on tweaking the playbook for more of those looks.

The same with Myles Jack playing well at the strong side linebacker position and likely to keep that spot going forward, as defensive coordinator Todd Wash could make adjustments to that role and the overall scheme to incorporate Jack more into the defense.

Early bye weeks stink, but this one might actually help the Jaguars going forward.