Jaguars Took Away The Short Passing Game Against Steelers

Gerry Dulac stated in his chat today that the Jacksonville Jaguars were consistently lining up 10 defensive players within 8 yards of the line of scrimmage this past Sunday. The theory behind that game plan was likely to take away the short quick passes that the Steelers used the week before against the Titans and additionally help support against the run on the windy day.

One of my charters, Alan Gifford, saw this in the Dulac chat and charted it today play by play. Dulac was indeed correct as Alan found that on 36 of the 63 offensive snaps the Jaguars had 10 or more defensive players within 8 yards of the line of scrimmage at the time the ball was snapped. On 60 of 63 plays they had 9 or more 8 yards or in.

In the table below, we have it charted by drive with a Y in the very deep pass column if it was one of the several deep balls.

The Jaguars usually were rolling the deep safety over to Mike Wallace in coverage and this is the reason you saw shots taken deep to Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders. The defensive backs were also giving quite a few free releases off the line as well. Those plays were there, but Ben Roethlisberger was unable to hit the wide open receivers.

Did the wind play into the game plan for the Jaguars? Perhaps a little, but Roethlisberger has been more accurate in worse conditions than that. Now you can see why short passes were a risky proposition this past Sunday and why Bruce Arians leaned so much on the run to set up the deep pass.

Thanks to Alan for charting this and make sure to follow him on Twitter at @algiff.