JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It’s clear that the Jacksonville Jaguars need significant roster upgrades at various spots on offense and defense.

Doing that will help another area that has been just as disappointing in 2021: special teams.

The drama surrounding fired head coach Urban Meyer, the inability to score more than 23 points, leading the NFL in dropped passes, and a defense that has forced an NFL-low seven turnovers and recorded just 26 sacks, has overshadowed the poor play by the Jaguars’ special teams.

They had two good plays in Sunday’s 26-21 loss at the New York Jets -- a fake punt to convert a first down and a stop of a Jets fake field goal attempt -- but they also gave up their fourth special teams touchdown of the season on Braxton Berrios’ 102-yard kickoff return.

“We have to do a better job in coverage,” interim head coach Darrell Bevell said. “We gave up one last week. We gave up one this week, and it ends up being a difference in a game. Whoever we put out there, it’s those guys' responsibility to be able to go out and make plays. We’ll continue to look at it, but the guy didn’t even break stride as he ran through our kickoff team, so we have to do a better job of filling our lanes, backside has to do a better job of closing.

“We’ll go back, we’ll look at it, we’ll evaluate it and continue to work on it.”

But much like the problems on offense -- especially at receiver -- and the pass rush, things aren’t likely to get better until moves are made in the offseason. Special teams have been a mess pretty much the entire season.

Meyer has a special teams background, and his special teams units at Florida and Ohio State were among the best in the country, so it was expected that the Jaguars’ units would be pretty good. But things didn’t go well almost from the start.

Special teams coordinator Brian Schneider stepped away for personal reasons in May. He did the same with Seattle just days before the 2020 season. Meyer's replacement for Schneider was Nick Sorensen, who was a special teams assistant with Seattle from 2013-16 before spending 2017-20 as secondary coach.

Meyer also eventually promoted Carlos Polk, who was hired as an assistant special teams coach, to assistant special teams coordinator just before the season began.

Kicker Josh Lambo, who had been the most accurate kicker in franchise history (91.8%), got off to a rough start, missed his first three field goal attempts, and battled confidence issues before the team cut him in favor of Matthew Wright.

Wright did help the Jaguars (2-13) earn their two victories this season -- he hit two field goals in the final four minutes when they beat the Miami Dolphins 23-20 in Week 6, and he scored all of the Jaguars' points in their 9-6 upset of the Buffalo Bills in Week 9. But he doesn’t have a strong enough leg to get kickoffs into the end zone consistently and opposing teams have taken advantage.

Opponents are averaging 30.2 yards per kickoff return, which is the second-highest rate in the NFL. The Jaguars are the only team to allow multiple kickoff returns for TDs this season. Houston’s Tremon Smith took one back 98 yards in the Texans’ 30-16 victory in Week 15.

They’ve also allowed a punt block for a touchdown (vs. Cincinnati Bengals) and an onside kick return for a touchdown (vs. Seattle Seahawks).

There have been some good things, though:

Jamal Agnew has scored on a kickoff return and a missed field goal attempt return, but Agnew was lost for the season after injuring his hip against San Francisco on Nov. 21.

Wright has made 13 of 16 field goal attempts, including his past nine.

Punter Logan Cooke is third in the NFL in net yards punting (43.6) and punts inside the 20 (28).

But the problems in coverage have outweighed those good things because the Jaguars’ offense just isn’t capable of producing enough points to either offset or overcome those special teams touchdowns. The Jaguars haven’t scored more than 23 points in any game this season.

Sunday’s loss to the Jets (4-11) was typical: The Jaguars scored 21 points, and that would have been enough for a third victory, had they not allowed the 102-yard kickoff return for a touchdown.

The strength of special teams coverage is generally directly tied to the strength of the bottom third of the roster. There are obviously starters sprinkled throughout the teams, but it’s generally extra defensive backs and linebackers who are the core special teamers. The Jaguars’ roster just isn’t strong enough there.

A coaching and roster overhaul in the offseason is needed to make things better.