Entering the season, the Jacksonville Jaguars had one of the best rushing attacks in the National Football League. Running backs Travis Etienne and Tank Bigsby combined to form perhaps the best running back duo in the league until an injury to Etienne disrupted the balance of the rushing attack.
Bigsby performed well in Etienne’s absence, but the Jaguars rushing attack as a whole took a step back after Etienne’s injury.
Bigbsy rushed for 118 yards in the team’s Week 7 win over the New England Patriots. The Jaguars wouldn’t rush for more than 100 yards again until last Sunday against the New York Jets.
The Jaguars’ 136 rushing yards in Week 15 against the Jets may have unlocked their rushing attack for the rest of the season. Jaguars offensive coordinator Press Taylor explained what he and the team did differently against the Jets.
“I also think early on it was all kind of an extension of the run game, with just some of the quick passes, whether it’s screens, quick plays, bubble throws being part of the run,” said Taylor. we kind of moved the ball back and forth and attacked a lot of different points. We could just be efficient. A little bit of that was the pace we were able to play at.
“But that all starts with: you fish on the first down, puts you in a second and manageable situation, we’ve had a lot of normal down situations. We’ve been able to get a lot of shots and a And part of that: we’ve done well on third down, I think we were over 50 percent on third down, keeping those drives going a drive, obviously everything goes up that was a big part of it for us.”
Taylor plans to continue looking for ways to do that the Jaguars retain‘ground game on track improves, as their offense flows significantly better when they run the ball successfully.
“Every game we go into, the question is: what can we do to get the football moving? That was just the way the game went,” Taylor said. “We were able to stay on pace, we were able to stick with the run game and get a lot of points scored. Just because of the game script, the way things went, I think for us there. That obviously fit the way we wanted those guys to play. You get a chance.
“The first half we dominated the time of possession. Obviously you would have liked to take advantage of the opportunities in the red zone. We had some missed opportunities there that keep you from scoring touchdowns, instead you settle for field goals. That was a But now we have (Jets QB) Aaron Rodgers sitting on the sideline watching us play, and that was certainly a big part of our success in the first half.
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