Todd Wash, Doug Marrone pump the brakes on speculation about Jags moving to a 3-4

With the Jacksonville Jaguars using seven of their 12 draft picks on defense, it certainly looked like the unit could predominately use 3-4 looks and that’s the vibe many members of the media felt after talking to the staff in April. After selecting …

With the Jacksonville Jaguars using seven of their 12 draft picks on defense, it certainly looked like the unit could predominately use 3-4 looks and that’s the vibe many members of the media felt after talking to the staff in April. After selecting players like pass rusher K’Lavon Chaisson and nose tackle DaVon Hamilton, questions began to pour in about a 3-4 defense, and both Doug Marrone and Dave Caldwell spoke of it in some shape.

However, after a recent Zoom call between the media and Marrone, and a separate one with defensive coordinator Todd Wash, it appears there may not be that drastic of a change in scheme in 2020.

“We know systematically we’re based off a four down linemen scheme, but we wanted to be able to increase our multiplicity and our front mechanics, meaning that there is a lot of different things that you can do on the back end,” Marrone said to the media.

“Coverage-wise there is a lot of disguising and a lot of things we can do to create that moment of indecision. Whether we’re pressing and bailing or pressing and going into cover two, there’s a lot of things you can do and it’s so much easier to be multiple in your coverage aspect.”

Not too soon after, Wash basically echoed what Marrone said about being based off a four-man front. He added that the reason for that was because he felt the team wasn’t built for two-gapping principles, which is what a 3-4 is typically based off. Instead, he stated that the Jags were going to be a one-gap penetrating front as we’ve seen since he’s been the coordinator.

“We’re not built to be a two-gap team; we’re still going to be one-gap, single-high,” Wash said on the Zoom call. “It’s just guys playing different spots, changing some alignment. We have not installed a different front from what we’ve had in our system the past two years. Leverages and alignments are going to be a little different within our scheme.

“You’re going to see the outside linebacker on the line of scrimmage more because that’s the skill set of the guys we have. Everybody’s saying a 3-4, but if you look at our system the last two years, we’ve had three different front families based out of the 3-4, but nobody considered us a 3-4.”

This also prompted the media to ask Wash if the hype about the Jags moving to a 3-4 was overblown. He simply replied, “That would be a correct statement.”

As for being more multiple, fans should look back at their season finale in 2019 against the Indianapolis Colts. They won that game by a score of 38-20 and the Jags showcased multiple alignments. One front that fans will likely see more of from 2019 is their use of a 50 front where the strong-side linebacker plays on the line of scrimmage (as Marrone mentioned during the draft). This, of course, will be a possibility thanks to the additions of Cassius Marsh and Chaisson this offseason.

In a nutshell, this all means the Jags won’t be drastically different from last season defensively, but will utilize more alignments as they did against Indy. Hopefully for Wash’s sake it works, as the Jags can’t afford to struggle defensively as they did in 2019, because if he doesn’t, his job and Marrone’s could be lost when 2021 arrives.