3. Internal Strife
It’s never a good sign when a bunch of teammates gets arrested at a club overpayment of a bill. I’m referring to the London incident that involved players on the Jacksonville Jaguars defense on October 27. If this team was winning, would that incident have occurred? It’s hard to look at the arrest as an isolated incident when the team is losing. Losing exposes a locker room. Either they’re going to stay unified or start to point the finger.
This team has started to point the finger. Even before those arrests were made, there was already some internal strife on the Jacksonville Jaguars. The week before the London game defensive end Yannick Ngakoue and Calais Campbell got into a scuffle. It was more so Campbell trying to calm Yannick down, but the fact that it happened was already an early sign of the cracks being created.
Those cracks have formed a distrust among the players on the team, especially on the defense. In almost every big play the Jaguars defense gave up against the Colts, every player was looking at each other, wondering what they were doing on the play. That’s never a good sign. There are trust and communication issues on the defensive side of the ball for the Jacksonville Jaguars. It’s a good part of the reason why the defense regresses each week. Losing makes it all worse.
Blame is to be cast everyone when a team loses five in a row, but the finger should be pointed at head coach Doug Marrone. He’s slowly losing control of the locker room if he hasn’t already. Last season he had the team motivated. They were on a mission to prove themselves and to be put on a pedestal. Well, the defense stayed on that pedestal. They don’t look as hungry anymore. Now it’s just finger pointing and mental breakdowns.
They’re all playing tight and aren’t in unison. Losing does that to teams. It’s why it’s impossible for them to climb out of the hole they dug and make a push for the playoffs. That would require that they all come together, which isn’t happening. The Jacksonville Jaguars defense is cursed.
