| Cole Pepper |
Jags Playing Close To The Vest
It doesn't take a great deal of espionage to know what the Jaguars challenges are this week. With reserves starting at both guard spots and at center, Jack Del Rio, offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter and company will have to find a way to minimize the exposure of Uche Nwaneri, Tutan Reyes and, to a lesser extent, Dennis Norman.
The goal here is (or should be, anyway), to reduce the number of snaps in the game and win a (probably) close, low scoring game.
In Tom Coughlin's final year as Jaguars head coach, he squeezed every last ounce out of a depleted roster. Especially late in the season, the Jaguars focused on the run game, and routinely let the play clock run down under 5 second before snapping the ball. With that appraoch, the Jaguars were in games and had a chance to win. They didn't have enough playmakers to get them over the top, so they finished at 6-10.
However, four of that team's losses were by three points or less.
That's the approach I think the Jaguars should take--at least until Brad Meester returns to the lineup next month.
But, in speaking with a number of Jaguars, that's not in the plans.
"We're not going to make any changes," said running back Maurice Jones-Drew.
"We just had a normal installation," said Fred Taylor.
"We don't change anything," said guard Uche Nwaneri.
The only guy who hinted that there might be some adjustments made in the approach was quarterback David Garrard who admitted that "those guys are getting a lot thrown at them, right now" when speaking about the new guards.
I think this game will tell us a lot about how much faith Del Rio and Koetter have in the new offensive linemen.
I'm also going to be curious to see who lines up at wide receiver. That's one of my Talking Points. You can read them here.
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