Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone deserves a lot of credit

The Jacksonville Jaguars have made it through the first quarter of the 2019 NFL season and it’s been a tumultuous ride. The team lost their expensive free agent franchise quarterback 10 snaps into the season, when Nick Foles broke his collar bone on a crushing hit while throwing his first touchdown in a Jaguars uniform. The team had to turn to a sixth-round rookie who looked overwhelmed in the preseason.

The team was also dealing with injuries all along the offensive line again and then their superstar corner, Jalen Ramsey, asked for a trade from the team because he felt like there was a huge disconnect with the front office and “respect had been lost”.

Through it all, amazingly, the Jaguars are tied with the rest of the AFC South at 2-2 and could easily be sitting at 3-1 and on top of the division had they converted the two-point conversion against the Houston Texans in Week 2.

Through it all it never seemed like the locker room was falling apart or the player’s confidence wavered.

Doug Marrone has taken a lot of flack from media, Jaguars fans, myself and others who cover the team, but after Sunday’s come from behind win he deserves a lot of credit. Sure, he still has his flaws as a head coach, but his ability to keep the team focused through all the turmoil and shut out all the noise is worthy of praise. Even with all the dumb mistakes on Sunday against the Denver Broncos, namely the bad offensive penalties, the team kept their focus and fought back to win the win the game.

A big reason they ended up coming back and winning the game were some of the halftime adjustments they made, especially on defense, which completely shut down the Broncos offense until late in the game.

I’m not going to start a coach of the year campaign, but I thought it was worth pointing Marrone deserves some credit keeping everything going and not spiraling out of control, given how the season started.