Candid Del Rio calls Jags' offense 'inept'

Discussion in 'Tennessee Titans and NFL Talk' started by NewsGrabber, Dec 8, 2008.

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  1. NewsGrabber

    NewsGrabber Guest

    Posted by ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky



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    Del Rio

    I've always like Jack Del Rio's willingness to talk honestly.

    Today in his talk with Jacksonville reporters, he used a word in describing his offense -- inept -- that's likely to stick as a label while the team spends an offseason trying to fix things.

    "It's just very difficult to win football games being that inept offensively, and that's what I thought it was. Not able to throw the ball well; we actually ran the ball decently and not able to throw the ball, convert third downs, make plays when we had to have them in the passing game."

    While crediting Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew for consistently running hard, Del Rio's assessment of his offense was pretty harsh, and pretty accurate.

    Jacksonville ranks 21st in total offense, 17th in rushing and 16th in passing. The Jaguars are 24th in points per game with 19.3.

    With three games left, here was Del Rio's state of the offense segment of his press conference Monday.

    "Offensively, we've got to have an improvement in the overall execution of our offense, in particular the passing game. It starts with having the time to look down the field, and then you've got to have receivers separating and getting open, and then you've got to have the quarterback working through his progressions. And we have not had those three things, we have not had that near the level we have to have it. So, we've got to continue to work on that, make sure that we're putting our players in position to do things they're capable of doing. It's got to be sharper. It's not been acceptable. I do feel like we can utilize our tight ends a little more. I think Marcedes Lewis is a weapon for us that we can utilize more; I'd like to see that. I know right now the one constant we have in our offense is that our backs are running extremely hard whenever they have the ball in their hands. Whether it be Fred (Taylor) or Maurice (Jones-Drew) carrying the ball, whether it be Maurice catching the ball out of the backfield, I think our backs have run very hard for us. That's the one constant that we have had and we've just got some work to do on the other areas."

    One of the side effects of the honesty is that Del Rio can sound like he's passing the buck. On first read, I automatically thought, "That doesn't sound too good for second-year offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter."

    I've been presuming defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who had a good share of his salary this year paid by the Washington Redskins thanks to his previous contract, won't be with the Jaguars for the long term. It was an odd marriage from the start for Williams. He was autonomous as Joe Gibbs' top defensive lieutenant with the Redskins, but had to be deferential to a defensive boss in Del Rio.

    Could Koetter be in jeopardy too? His reputed to be a pass game guru, but Del Rio has sliced up what he's seen from the pass game pretty good. Of course it's not on Koetter that the Jaguars lost three of their top six linemen for the year right at the start and we don't know how much of the blame for Jerry Porter's and Troy Williamson's lack of production is on the coordinator.

    We do know Del Rio hasn't been afraid of staff turnover during his tenure in Jacksonville.

    Del Rio was asked a follow-up on the passing game and expanded on what's not happening.

    "I can't really give you insight on that right now, beyond telling you it's a combination of the three factors that I discussed previously. It's the ability of the line to protect. When guys have created the separation, the ability for those guys to then get the separation and then the quarterback to work through his progressions and deliver the ball on time. I think those three factors... It's not like one or the other hasn't been good. It's just that you have to have all three to throw the ball. We had the protection and the receiver comes open, the quarterback has either gone ahead of his progression or locked in somewhere prematurely. Or a quarterback's ready, sees the guy coming open, a guy's getting open but the line breaks down and we don't have a chance to get to that pattern. It's one or the other. All three are important and you must operate with protection, the ability to separate, the quarterback all have to click together in the passing game to make it work and we've come up short."


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  2. TitanJeff

    TitanJeff Kahuna Grande Staff

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  3. He'll be choppin' wood elsewhere next season...
     
  4. GoT

    GoT Strength and Honor

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    I heard ownership was in such bad shape that they would keep JDR so they did not have to buy him out
     
  5. Gunny

    Gunny Shoutbox Fuhrer

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    Funny...I call that team sh*t
     
  6. Childress79

    Childress79 Loungefly ®

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    Pray that Del Rio never leaves the Jags.He has a talent for losing that just wont quit.
     
  7. Psychop1

    Psychop1 Big Tee

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    Newsflash - When your QB is doing this -

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    and this

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    in the offseason, he might suck when it's time to play.
     
  8. #90

    #90 Camp Fodder

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    I guess getting rid of Leftwich last year in favor of the great Garrard might have been a little premature.....
     
  9. GoTitans3801

    GoTitans3801 Forward Progress!

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    Huh, when I call them that, it's "smack," but when he does it, it's "news."
     
    • High Five High Five x 2
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