Jacksonville Jaguars coach Doug Pederson isn’t thinking about taking play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Press Taylor. As far as he’s concerned, the team has other things to worry about.
“I know, being around this league, everybody wants to point the finger somewhere,” Pederson said Tuesday. “We’ve got to do a better job taking care of the football. It’s not about the plays. We’ve got to tackle better and we’ve got to take care of the football. Bottom line. If we do those things, those give us a chance to win football games.”
In the last three weeks, the Jaguars have turned the ball over 10 times. During the team’s four-game losing streak, Pro Football Focus has credited the defense with missing at least a dozen tackles per game. Jacksonville missed 12 or more tackles in just two of the 11 games prior to the recent skid.
Early in the season, Pederson pointed to execution as a more significant issue than play-calling when asked about Taylor. While his answer Tuesday echoed that sentiment, Pederson doesn’t think coaching is blameless for the team’s offensive issues.
Pederson said both of Trevor Lawrence’s interceptions Sunday were due to miscommunications between the quarterback and his receivers.
“We always give Trevor some outs when it comes to the passing game, particularly on third down, and we just missed the signal,” Pederson said. “Those are the things that can’t happen. Again, it makes the play worse. To me that falls back on coaches to make sure our players are prepared that way, that we’ve covered them in meetings, that we’ve covered them in practice, so that when they get in the game, they have all eyes on the quarterback.
“We have to do that. We have to get ourselves into better plays and out of bad ones. A lot of the non-verbal, hand signal communication has to take place. It’s something we’re going to continue to review, continue to have in our game plan, and we’ve got to get better.”
There’s no doubt the Jaguars need something to change in a major way with their season slipping away fast. That won’t include Taylor passing the sticks to Pederson, though.