Has the Fate of Jacksonville Jaguars Offensive Coordinator, Press Taylor, Been Foretold?

Jacksonville Fl. – If you’ve watched any of the Jaguars training camp, you’d have no question in your mind that the Jaguars defense has utterly dominated the offense. Yes, it is still early in training, the offense has plenty of room to grow, and the defense may just be playing great rather than the offense failing. However, in the NFL there are no excuses, so let’s take a deeper dive into the current position the Jaguars offensive coordinator Press Taylor is in.

Last season fans were calling for Press Taylor’s head. The Jaguars had a disastrous end to what seemed like a very promising season, in which they started off 8-3 and momentarily were 1st in the AFC. That was before their catastrophic fall to 9-7, barely missing the playoffs and losing the division to the Houston Texans, led by C.J. Stroud and DeMeco Ryans. The season was a calamitous disappointment for the fans, players, and city of Jacksonville as a whole going from setting their eyes on the first franchise championship, to just praying to make the wildcard. 

The number one reason for the Jaguars missing the playoffs from mine and many fan’s perspectives was because of Press Taylor’s dull play designs and horrific play calling. Press, taking over the play calling duties last season from Doug Pederson, would without hesitation abandon the run whenever they lost a lead. This would put Trevor Lawrence and the offense in poor situations to succeed time and time again. Games in which Travis Etienne had 14+ carries the Jaguars were 9-3, every single win the Jaguars had came when Etienne got a considerable amount of touches. On the other hand the Jaguars were 0-5 in games in which Etienne got less than 14 carries, yet Press never learned from this mistake. When you have a star running back that you know can explode for a play at any given moment, you can’t just abandon him because you’re losing, and that’s on Press Taylor for making those decisions. 

Even when Jacksonville was set up in the proper situation to throw the ball though, the play designs from Press were quite disastrous, especially in the red zone. Every single play seemed to be focused on low percentage plays at the back of the end zone or along the sideline only making the job of Trevor, and the receivers especially, harder. A good offensive coordinator is supposed to set up his guys for success and take advantage of their strengths, it seems Press struggles to accomplish that goal. There’s an evident lack of plays over the middle whether it’s slants, drags, or crossers…he hasn’t consistently set up his receivers for easy grabs over the middle so they can turn up field and make a play. Everyone by now has seen the “Trevor Lawrence near missed touchdowns” compilation, and the key similarity to just about all of those plays is that they’re in the back of the end zone or by the sideline. That is still the type of offense Press Taylor runs.

As I stated before, the offense especially struggled in the red zone due to Taylor’s playcalling. I’d like to expand upon that some more though. The Jaguars last season came away scoreless on 11 of their 41 trips to the red zone. That is a 26.8% rate of complete failure while in scoring range. 26.8% may not sound all that high, but the only team in the past whole decade with a worse percentage than that on a season, was none other than the 2017 0-16 Cleveland Browns, who some refer to as the worst NFL team of all time.

Despite the failure of Taylor and the offense last season, Doug Pederson came to his defense, stating that if Press leaves then Doug himself will be gone as well. Following that statement, Shad Khan fired defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell and his staff. Mike was later on replaced with former Falcons defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen.

Fast forward to today, the Jaguars offense has continued to struggle into training camp in a dramatic fashion. Ryan Nielsen’s defense has proven to be superior to Taylor’s offense in every manner. The defense has stopped the offense in their tracks countless times whether it be via interceptions, fumbles, sacks, or even just perfect coverage. Just about every receiver has struggled to find separation, especially in the red zone, much like Taylor’s offense last season. The offense has produced more turnovers than scores and many don’t know what to think as this level of defensive superiority was never expected. 

If what has been shown in camp so far is any sign of what’s to come, Press Taylor’s time in Jacksonville will be up very soon. The offense with Trevor Lawrence was expected to outperform Jacksonville’s defense, which has plenty of new key starters and a new defensive coordinator, yet that could not be further from the truth of what has gone down. Ryan Nielsen has come in and since day 1 seemingly started packing up Press Taylor’s bags. If the trend of the offense continues, there will certainly be change coming to Jacksonville’s offense and Press is likely first on the chopping block.