Uncertainty about the Jaguars’ play-calling situation persisted throughout the offseason, and fans were kept in the dark about the matter even into the campaign’s first month. Doug Pederson shed some light on the issue in the wake of the team’s fourth loss of the season.
It is indeed OC Press Taylor holding the call sheet, as the longtime Pederson lieutenant did last season and as he did to start the preseason. While Pederson said days before the season he had not decided who would call plays and then did not clear up this matter to start the year, Taylor is at the controls for what has been a tough Jags start.
[RELATED: Pederson-Trent Baalke Relationship Strained?]
When asked if he would consider retaking play-calling duties, the third-year Jacksonville HC quickly shot down that notion (via ESPN.com’s Michael DiRocco) and praised Taylor. The former Super Bowl-winning HC then shifted some blame onto his players, which should do nothing to cool down a seat that has warmed up as the team has gone from authorizing three big-ticket extensions to 0-4.
“For what? I thought he called a great game,” Pederson said of Taylor. “As coaches, we can’t go out there and make the plays. It’s a two-way street. So you guys can sit here and point the finger all you want and it’s fine. Point it right at me, I can take it. OK.”
Pederson served as the Jags’ primary play-caller in his first season, which — perhaps not coincidentally — finished best, as the 9-8 team rallied to the divisional round and gave the eventual Super Bowl-winning Chiefs a scare. That came after a historic wild-card comeback win. Although the Jaguars reached 8-3 last season, they have now lost nine of their past 10 games. Trevor Lawrence has lost his past nine starts. with the quarterback completing just 53.3% of his passes. The former No. 1 pick connected on 66.3% of his throws in 2022 and 65.6% last season. Despite the Jaguars signing Gabriel Davis and then drafting Brian Thomas Jr. in Round 1, their passing game has regressed.
Pederson standing up for Taylor is not new. He employed Press Taylor, the younger brother of Bengals HC Zac Taylor, throughout his Philadelphia tenure. Press Taylor had arrived as a Chip Kelly hire in 2013 but climbed the ladder under Pederson. He became Philly’s QBs coach in 2018 and added the title of pass-game coordinator in 2020. After a 4-12 2020 season that involved the Eagles benching Carson Wentz, Pederson pitched an idea of promoting Taylor to OC to Eagles ownership. Many in the organization were leery of Taylor jumping another rung on the coaching ladder. Philly brass passing on that proposal helped lead Pederson out of town in January 2021.
This offseason, owner Shad Khan seemed to voice a preference for Pederson returning to the play-calling role. After all, Jacksonville’s HC called signals throughout his time running the Eagles and had taken the call sheet at points under Andy Reid in Kansas City. Considering the hot-seat rumors tied to Pederson, he has shown tremendous faith in Taylor.
With the Jags 0-4 after giving Lawrence, Josh Hines-Allen and Tyson Campbell the three most lucrative deals in team history, Khan is undoubtedly losing faith in the hire he made in 2022. Pederson may well be coaching for his job in Week 5, even though he is the first HC to lead this franchise to back-to-back winning seasons wince Jack Del Rio from 2004-05. Khan has fired two coaches (Gus Bradley, Urban Meyer) in-season. It may well be an upset at this point if that number does not expand to three before year’s end.
Poorly run franchise. Add in the guy who stole some $ 20+ million shows how inept they are.
Pederson is the best coach Khan is likely to see in a decade or more. Firing him would be a big mistake. The woes with the Jaguars seem to go deep, but Pederson for his part is showing up sober and focused for work.
Trevor Lawrence has a ton of talent but he’s openly said his heart is not entirely in football. He comes from a very wealthy family and he’s waiting for the second part of his life to start. If he had a little less talent, he probably would have finished with football after college. It might have gone better for Lawrence if he’d ended up on a better team to start with – the 49ers, the Vikings or the Rams. I’d include the Chiefs as an Andy Reid team but the QB position there is locked down. But top draft picks rarely do.
Jayden Daniels is lucky to have landed on a Dan Quinn led team with the Commies. Matt Ryan did well under Quinn. Quinn former assistants include QB gurus and head coaches Matt Lafleur, Kyle Shanahan, Mike McDaniel.
Things have certainly come off the rails. As a long time Bears fan I’m familiar with a dysfunctional organization. Poor coaching hires, questionable free agent signings and trades. Going back I was in favor of the Bears hiring Pederson as HC. He checked all the boxes. Experienced HC, knows an offense, play calling and had some success. I felt he would have been the HC to develop Justin Fields and bring some credibility to the Bears offense. But, they hired Eberflus. Maybe in some alternate universe Pederson in the Bears HC. The Bears have a top 10 offense and they are a solid play off team.
Eberflus said he awarded a game ball to Marcedes Lewis after the win against the Rams. I don’t think I can take him seriously as a HC after that…lol.
Fred – “The Bears have a top 10 offense and they are a solid playoff team.” Are you serious? 4 games into the season, they are 2-2 & currently hold the 11th position in the NFC playoff picture. 7 teams from each conference make the playoffs. Solid playoff team, hahaha.
Khan may want to be patient with Pederson, but refusing to make changes if the season does not improve may force his hand. Taylor may or may not be a bad coach-I’m no professional, and I don’t know what goes on in the Jags’ organization-but it seems prudent for Pederson to make some type of change if they continue to struggle. Being snarky and refusing to make a change if the ineptitude continues-and it is ineptitude-would be an extremely unproductive and stubborn way to handle it. Maybe it’ll magically get better, but if it doesn’t, would you wish that you had done it differently? Good leaders know when to stick to their guns and when to change ammunition-this is one of those decisions. Being snarky, though, doesn’t help.
Baalke deserves an enormous amount of blame for this situation that he, as usual, seems to have exported into his coaches. The environment seems poor, as have prior Baalke environments (in fairness, Pederson also has a history of being a bit mercurial himself with management), but the real sin is in the roster. Either Lawrence was re-signed to a mistake contract for being average, or Baalke failed to provide him with the pieces to capitalize on his sole season that featured good coaching and good support. Baalke was caught completely by surprise, with no contingency plan, by Ridley’s departure, and Ridley was no small part of that Lawrence resurgence.
So, Pederson and Taylor are getting outcoached, but Baalke really didn’t help them by following up on their playoff year. He knew that the schedule would get tougher, and that the Jags couldn’t count on being unknown in their current offensive form anymore. Picking Thomas was the right move at the time, but Kirk is a slot receiver who’s being paid like a dominant X outside threat (which is what the Jags need and have failed to acquire). The offensive line is still average at best, and Baalke, despite handing out these congratulatory contracts, has done an inadequate job of building on the few positives that his tenure has produced.
While Baalke is not considered to be an even average general manager, his major failures are in drafting not contracts in my opinion. His drafting of ettiene is a major mistake, picking Trevon walker is now looking like a major mistake not invest draft capital in the o-line is probably the worst of all Lawrence might never me even half of what he was originally hyped up to be but in his defense his offensive lines in his tenure have been below average at best. Additionally in Baalkes defense I don’t think the Kirk contact in light of what #2 receivers are getting paid on an Aav basis is actually all that bad. And Lawrence’s contract is not really all that bad in terms of the fact that there are outs built in. If I’m remembering correctly the team can get out of the contract after next season so it doesn’t have to sandbag the franchise for what the advertised amount is.
I actually agree with that. I don’t hate the contracts, but he needs to support them with players. I threw that comment in there to address the argument that Lawrence wasn’t worth the money. I suppose we’ll see by the end of the deal, but teams have to extend those types of players.
I do disagree about Kirk, though. He’s not a bad player, but he’s not what Jacksonville is trying to use him as. If he were, they wouldn’t have been so desperate to bring in Ridley last year. That does bring me to my next point regarding Baalke’s failures, which is in not planning for Ridley’s departure by either getting him to re-sign or acquiring a replacement. This is related to your and my comments about drafting adequately, but Baalke did not scour the free agent market adequately either. Something should have been done there, and little was. I actually don’t blame him for the Thomas pick, but Christian Kirk and a rookie is not enough to carry a receiving corps.
Part of the reason it fell apart in Philly was Pederson had an insistence on promoting Taylor to OC, and the brass said no. So, he was loyal and went down with the ship and they parted ways.
So here it’s eerily familiar. He’s loyal to Taylor again while another brass yet again apparently is saying no.
So it looks like this is gonna drag out and end with a parting of ways for a franchise that instead should really be making some noise in this league.
This team just has no identity. What are they good at? What separates them from other teams? They should be a great offensive team by now but they aren’t. Did Lawrence hit his ceiling already? If so, he isn’t worth $50M a year.