Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Philadelphia Eagles: Week 8 sack analysis

The Jacksonville Jaguars offense was better last week against the Philadelphia Eagles but it still wasn’t good enough. In recent weeks, the offense has failed to score in the first half and had averaged just 9.3 points per game coming into last Sunday. While 18 points is still better and the team did see several sustained drives late in the game, 18 points ain’t gonna get it done against most NFL teams.

Unless, ironically, you’re the Jaguars whose offense has scored more than 18 points just twice this year.

Anyway, this article is about the offensive line and specifically sacks, of which four were given up last week.

Who was responsible for those sacks? Let’s take a look.

Sack #1: 3rd & 8 at JAX 22, 0:10 in 1Q

(Shotgun) B. Bortles sacked at JAX 14 for -8 yards (C. Long).

The Eagles overloaded the right side of the Jaguars offensive line and Jermey Parnell has one more defender than he can block. I don’t know why the running backs continually went to help in pass protection alongside center Brandon Linder but the offense got fooled into thinking the Eagles were going to send No. 53 Nigel Bradham. That caused Linder to hesitate and get to his man late which is why I’m guessing T.J. Yeldon went straight to help him once the ball was snapped. The left side of the line is also only blocking one defender for some reason. Maybe the pre-snap protection read needed to be different?

I can’t really pin this on any one player as it looks like a good fake by the Eagles and several things went wrong in the protections.

Fault: Team

Sack #2: 2nd & 9 at PHI 42, 4:41 in 2Q

B. Bortles sacked at PHI 49 for -7 yards (sack split by J. Hicks and M. Bennett).

Blake Bortles didn’t have a ton of time, but he seems to panic early. The Eagles defense continually took away the short game on important downs and kept Blake guessing on where the pressure was going to come from.

Fault: Blake Bortles

Sack #3: 1st & 10 at JAX 25, 0:24 in 2Q

(Shotgun) B. Bortles sacked at JAX 25 for 0 yards (C. Long).

Again, it looks like Blake panics a bit in the pocket. It’s not a perfect pass protection, but the play only breaks down when Blake starts to run.

Fault: Blake Bortles

Sack #4: 2nd & 1 at PHI 43, 2:24 in 3Q

(Shotgun) B. Bortles sacked at PHI 49 for -6 yards (J. Hicks).

If I had to guess, I’d say Hyde was again going for the wrong guy. He goes first to help right tackle Jermey Parnell but seeing that Parnell is only blocking one defender he sprints back to help. Newly installed left tackle Josh Walker whiffed on his guy as well, helping left guard Andrew Norwell for a moment before trying to get No. 53 Nigel Bradham.

Fault: Carlos Hyde

Summary

This offense is not good and it’s not getting better. It’s going to be a long second half, folks.

Up next: The bye week!