Jacksonville entered the 2021 season with fairly low expectations. The team was coming off a franchise-worst 1-15 finish, and even with a new quarterback in Trevor Lawrence and a slew of additions on both sides of the ball, this is still a young team that needs to add more talent.
But the Jags are getting better play out of some of their players over the last few weeks, and when trying to answer the question of who the most improved player is on this roster from a season ago, there’s one clear-cut answer: third-year edge rusher Josh Allen.
Allen totaled 10.5 sacks in a stellar rookie campaign, but injuries limited his production in 2020, and he totaled just 2.5 sacks. However, he already has 5.5 sacks in 2021 with 12 quarterback hits (one more than he had last year), and he had the best game of his career in the win over Buffalo two weeks ago.
Bleacher Report’s Kristopher Knox agrees, naming Allen Jacksonville’s most improved player in 2021.
Jacksonville Jaguars pass-rusher Josh Allen experienced a sophomore slump last season, due in part to a knee injury that landed him on injured reserve. After amassing 10.5 sacks and making the Pro Bowl as a rookie, Allen appeared in only eight games and finished with just 2.5 sacks.
However, Allen is back on the rise this season and is becoming more than just the situational edge-rusher he was as a rookie. Allen has already produced 5.5 sacks, 17 quarterback pressures and eight tackles for loss.
Allen has also started all nine contests and has played a career-high 76 percent of the defensive snaps. He’s only three tackles shy of the 44 he had in 16 games as a rookie and has notched the first two takeaways (one interception, one fumble recovery) of his career.
While Allen isn’t regularly used in pass coverage, he’s held his own. He’s allowed an opposing passer rating of only 61.9 and has four batted balls after logging only one in his first two seasons.
The hope was that under new defensive coordinator Joe Cullen’s system, which mostly implements a 3-4 base defense, Allen would find success in a similar scheme to the one he ran in college. While he had a bit of a slow start to the season, he’s playing at a dominant level right now, and his sack numbers don’t even fully reflect how disruptive he’s been in the backfield.
This team doesn’t have many players it can build around, especially on defense, but Allen is proving to be one of them.