4 Jags to watch on offense vs. Raiders

The Jacksonville Jaguars will come into Week 15’s game against the Oakland Raiders looking for their first win since their bye week and they will have to do it on the West Coast where they’ve lost eight in a row. While the defense has allowed team’s …

The Jacksonville Jaguars will come into Week 15’s game against the Oakland Raiders looking for their first win since their bye week and they will have to do it on the West Coast where they’ve lost eight in a row. While the defense has allowed team’s to move the ball at will, the Jags will need their offense to show up, too, if they want to win as the unit has only scored 41 points in their last three games.

Here are four players to watch on offense as the Jags try and pull off an upset Sunday in Oakland:

RB Leonard Fournette

It’s getting old at this point to say that the Jags need Fournette to be successful on the ground early. With the defense riddled with injuries and struggling to stop the run, the only chance the Jags have is to control the clock.

In the process of the Jags’ terrible season, Fournette has been a rare bright spot and continuing his success against a middle of the pack rush defense shouldn’t be extremely difficult. If he can get offensive John DeFilippo to trust the run early in the game, that could lead to a game where Fournette gets a 20-plus carry load, which translates to a win more often than having a pass-happy outing.

WR Chris Conley

With the Jags’ No. 1 receiver, DJ Chark Jr., being ruled out this week, the offense is going to need someone to be a vertical threat for the unit. I believe that could be Chris Conley, who has a similar skill-set to the second-year receiver.

Unfortunately, Conley will be coming off a game where he only had one reception for seven yards Week 14 and the Jags will need him to get it in gear. Despite having a lackluster season, that may not be hard to do when considering he had his best game of the year (Week 8) with rookie quarterback Gardner Minshew II behind center and not Nick Foles surprisingly. The key will likely be for the pair to establish a connection early because that’s typically when the Jags win.

However, a slow start would make the a loss almost a certainty.

Center Brandon Linder

Brandon Linder is coming off his best game of the season as he earned a spot on Pro Football Focus’ team of the week with an 84.2 grade. He didn’t allow any sacks or quarterback pressures, and the Jags need him to duplicate that this week.

This week, he’ll be up against Johnathan Hankins and Maurice Hurst in the interior, both of whom are having decent seasons by PFF’s standards with grades of 68.5 and 71.2, respectively. Linder especially need to flourish as a run blocker because, as we mentioned earlier, Fournette will need a heavy workload if the Jags are to win Sunday.

QB Gardner Minshew II

The Mississippi Mustache will be heading back to the West Coast where he had a lot of success as a college player. The atmosphere of Sunday’s game will be awfully similar to that at Washington State because the Raiders will be having their last home game at RingCentral Coliseum (a.k.a. Oakland Coliseum) and he must show he can deal with the hostile crowd from the jump.

As we’ve seen in the past, typically a rough start in the first quarter leads to a loss. That said, the Jags can’t come into Sunday’s game with Minshew having multiple three-and-outs, so they will need him to play like the star he was with the Cougars and put up a couple points early.