Oof. I know you're feeling it after the gut-wrenching loss against the Houston Texans in Week 10. With a chance to secure a 2-0 record against a division opponent—and up 29-10 in the fourth quarter—the Jacksonville Jaguars failed in a franchise-record-breaking fashion. And while there were many, many issues revealed by that game, I want to take a moment to focus on our pass rush.
B&T's own Carlos Sanchez already took a deep dive into the defensive woes from Week 10, so we won't rehash them in depth here. Suffice to say, the Jags let backup Davis Mills do almost whatever he wanted, especially during the fourth quarter. This isn't the first time, though.
Just two weeks ago, Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford had his way with the secondary. I'm willing to give that one a pass—he's Matthew Stafford, after all—but when you consider the Cincinnati Bengals backup Jake Browning did much the same, it starts to become a problem.
Related: 3 Winners (and 11 losers) from the Jaguars' Week 10 win vs. Texans
The Jaguars defense is no longer a strength
I've said something similar before, but if you told me at the beginning of the season that Jacksonville would be 5-4 with wins over the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs, I might not have been disappointed. Heck, I might have been ecstatic. I would have assumed wide receivers Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter were clicking, and that defensive ends Travon Walker and Josh Hines-Allen were having themselves a year. I would have been wrong, of course.
Not only are the defensive ends not having themselves a year, but the Jaguars have just 12 sacks—tied for the lowest in the league. Even worse? Walker and Hines-Allen account for a paltry four of those. While Brett Kollmann may point out the number of pressures Jacksonville had Sunday (20, for the record), he also rightly says, "they only converted one of those the entire day into an actual sack."
Even head coach Liam Coen talks about their defensive woes: "We tried zero blitzing a number of different times, and that created a turnover early in the game. Put pressure on them to make throws under duress.... We never made [them] one-dimensional, even towards the end of the game. They were still running the ball, staying balanced. We never got them into second and long's."
General manager James Gladstone is likely thinking about the future
Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Media recently released a list of the top 25 free agents for 2026, the players whose contracts expire at the end of the year. Among them is Cincinnati Bengals edge rusher Trey Hendrickson. As Rosenthal writes, "The Bengals’ one-year raise for Hendrickson makes it likely that he actually makes it to free agency next offseason. A potential franchise tag would cost $36 million."
Will Hendrickson be available? And if so, will Gladstone have the stones to go after him? Considering how poor the Bengals' defense is, Hendrickson's four sacks and three tackles for a loss stand out—not to mention his forced fumble and pass breakup. Sure, he's not having the kind of season he's had in the past, but even still, he's doubled the sack output of our top edge rushers.
Gladstone has shown he's willing to make the big play and pay the big player. While it's too late this year to bolster the defensive line, I'll be keeping my eye on the Bengals and Trey Hendrickson this offseason.
Final thoughts
The season's not lost—not yet, at least—and there's plenty of time to turn things around. To do so, the Jaguars have to get better at sacking the quarterback and stop just getting pressures. As one X user noted, "pressures are the participation trophy of defensive stats."