JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- For a moment, it looked like the Jacksonville Jaguars were on their way to a 17-point fourth quarter lead against the Miami Dolphins to open the 2024 season.
A road victory against the Dolphins would be a great way to start, given the late-season collapse that cost the Jaguars a playoff bid and an AFC South title in 2023. Miami was also the first of four straight playoff teams the Jaguars would face to begin the season.
But three yards from the goal line, with the Jaguars up 17-7, Dolphins safety Jevon Holland hit running back Travis Etienne Jr. from the left and knocked the football loose. Nickel back Kader Kohou recovered it in the back of the end zone and the Dolphins took over on their own 20-yard line with 2:19 to play in the third quarter.
Eleven seconds later, Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill scored an 80-yard touchdown on a pass from quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, cutting the Jaguars lead to 17-14.
The Jaguars didn't cross midfield again while the Dolphins tied the game. Then, as time expired, the Dolphins kicked a game-winning field goal.
"If you hang onto that football, you're a 24-7 lead going into the fourth quarter, and who knows?" then-head coach Doug Pederson said. "Go to the next game [against the Cleveland Browns]. If we don't have an illegal shift in the red zone, we score a touchdown, kick a field goal, it's a different ball game.
"It's just, 'What if?'"
The opening loss was the first indication the issues that derailed the 2023 season had not been resolved. The Jaguars went on to blow seven second-half leads, including six in the fourth quarter, and went 3-10 in one-score games in 2024.
Among the issues, the team lacked a strong identity, strong vocal leadership in the locker room, on-field discipline and several key players due to injury, including franchise quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Those struggles were compounded by a disappointing free agent class and one of the worst defenses in franchise history.
The "best team assembled by the Jacksonville Jaguars," as owner Shad Khan called it in training camp, ended the season 4-13 and last in the AFC South.
Khan fired Pederson one day after the season ended -- yet retained general manager Trent Baalke -- and turned his attention to hiring his sixth head coach since becoming owner in 2011.
"As much as Doug and I both wish his experience here in Jacksonville would have ended better," Khan said, "I have an obligation first and foremost to serve the best interests of our team and especially our fans, who faithfully support our team and are overdue to be rewarded. In that spirit, the time to summon new leadership is now."
AFTER THE 2023 season, Baalke was critical of the Jaguars in his end-of-season news conference.
"You've got to develop that identity in the offseason and all the way through training camp, the preseason and into the season," Baalke said on Jan. 25, 2024. "We've got to get bigger. We've got to get stronger and get more physical in the trenches."
Though the front office tried to build the team through an active free agency and draft, that identity was never established.
Instead, Khan noted the 2024 Jaguars were "the most predictable team on both sides of the ball" at his end-of-season news conference.
Khan said he left his meeting with Pederson the week before the season finale not liking the coach's plan moving forward -- which, according to a team source, included no major changes. That's when Khan made his decision.
"What we were doing was not working and a change in direction was needed," he said.
Khan's assessment on the Jaguars' predictability was shared by Baalke, according to a team source.
Consider this, courtesy of ESPN Research:
The Jaguars used motion at the snap on 11.3% of their snaps (fewest in the NFL) and ranked 31st in plays with pre-snap motion (44.1%).
In addition, 77.3% of the Jaguars' rush attempts were between the tackles (third-highest rate in the league).
The Jaguars ran designed pass plays 69% of the time on second downs, which ranked behind only the Cincinnati Bengals (73%).
Lawrence agreed the offense was predictable at times, mainly because running the ball was an issue. The Jaguars averaged 2.13 yards per rush before first contact, worse than all but the Carolina Panthers, and ranked 26th in rushing offense (101.0 yards per game).
"We weren't able to run the ball consistently, effectively, the last few years and I think that really gave us trouble," Lawrence said. "It's hard to get everything else going when that's struggling, so I think that's where you maybe can see the predictability.
"Obviously, this year it becomes even tougher with a bunch of injuries ... then it is challenging to be unpredictable and efficient and explosive."
Nine starters or key players missed a total of 39 games, led by Lawrence (eight), receivers Christian Kirk (nine) and Gabe Davis (seven) and tight end Evan Engram (eight).
Pederson was adamant coordinator Press Taylor's playcalling wasn't the reason the offense struggled.
Pederson faced external criticism about Taylor in 2023, who took over full-time playcalling duties that season. Before that, Pederson and Taylor split halves in a successful 2022 season.
Last February, Pederson said he would reevaluate playcalling. Khan said in June that he had a preference on who he wanted to call plays but would leave the decision up to Pederson. A team source said Baalke wanted Pederson to call plays in 2024, but did not push the issue.
Pederson eventually confirmed Taylor was still the playcaller after a Sept. 29 loss to the Houston Texans.
Still, it continued to be a point of contention.
For example, in Week 10 with Kirk and Davis out for the season, Brian Thomas Jr. -- who led rookie receivers in targets, receiving yards and touchdowns this season -- was expected to be a bigger part of the offense as WR1. Yet Thomas didn't get his first target from quarterback Mac Jones against the Minnesota Vikings until 1:02 remained in the third quarter. Thomas ended up with two catches for 12 yards on a season-low three targets.
In Week 14 against the Tennessee Titans, Jones targeted Thomas twice in the first half, but after a sideline conversation between Pederson and Taylor, the Jaguars decided to force-feed Thomas. He had eight catches for 86 yards on 10 targets in the second half, including a 31-yarder that set up the go-ahead touchdown in the Jaguars' 10-6 victory.
"You want to execute your game plan. You want to get things going, get everybody involved when you can," Pederson said postgame. "But then at some point, you know what? We got to get BT the ball. ... We made a conscious effort to [really] focus on that. And it was successful for us.
"And everybody's gonna go, 'Well, why don't you do that at the start of the game?' Well, I mean, OK, yeah. We probably should. Maybe they're smarter than we are."
THE OFFENSE WASN'T the only problem.
Pederson made an offseason change on defense, firing Mike Caldwell and hiring former Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen. But the unit didn't improve under Nielsen -- it got worse.
By the end of the season, the Jaguars ranked last in pass defense, 31st in total defense, 25th in run defense, 27th in scoring defense and 25th on third downs. They forced a league-low nine turnovers and were the only team in single digits.
The Jaguars' 389.9 yards per game allowed was the second-worst average in franchise history (417.7 in 2020) and their 257.4 passing yards per game allowed was the third-worst mark in franchise history.
And to Khan's earlier point, they were predictable.
Defensively, the Jaguars lined up with two high safeties a league-high 60.9% of the time while playing Cover 3 a league-low 8.3% of the time. They played man coverage 56% of the time, slightly behind the Detroit Lions (56.4%) and Denver Broncos (56.3%).
According to multiple team sources, players were upset with the rotation system Nielsen installed when he arrived.
Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker were the top edge rushers, yet there were times when both were off the field at the same time, sometimes leaving veteran Arik Armstead -- who had success as a pass rusher in his previous nine seasons rushing from the interior -- and seventh-round rookie Myles Cole on the field in key situations.
Similarly, one of the Jaguars best tacklers, Foyesade Oluokun, had played all but 18 of the Jaguars' defensive snaps the past two seasons and led the NFL in solo tackles each season. But in 2024, he played 88% of the defensive snaps in 13 games (he missed four on IR with a foot injury).
Blown coverages, missed assignments and the inability to make plays in crucial moments at the end of games (giving up a long pass to set up a game-winning field goal against Green Bay Packers backup QB Malik Willis, for example) were issues all season.
"Fundamentals," Hines-Allen said. "Down to the fundamentals, down to the eye progression, down to striking the block, down to knowing who to block ... it's all down to those things that right now.
"It is hard to talk about. It's hard to be a part of it. Hard to explain it, to be like, 'Oh, that's the reason why.'"
Multiple sources inside the organization called the Jaguars undisciplined and not mentally tough.
Pederson called the team's self-inflicted mistakes on both sides of the ball the "most frustrating thing that I've seen or been a part of, and it's something that's been holding us back all year. And at some point you would think that enough would be enough."
AMID A SEASON of on-field turmoil, the locker room seemed to stick together but confidence started to erode.
Two days after the Jaguars' 24-20 loss in Houston dropped their record to 0-4, a report surfaced that Pederson had lost the locker room.
Multiple players disputed the report, including Engram, who said he hadn't seen signs of anyone quitting and was proud the team hadn't fractured.
"It's hard to stick your chest out and say that because obviously the results are what matters in this league, but I think it's just a great testament to the guys in the locker room and the guys that make the choice every morning to come in here and work and commit to the making the ship and to continue to fight for the right result for the result we want," he said.
As the season went on, despite separate four- and five-game losing streaks -- which included a 46-point loss to the Lions, the worst in franchise history -- players said they never fully checked out.
"The quit is never in our mindset or in our vocabulary," cornerback Tyson Campbell said.
While they played to win every week, running back Tank Bigsby noticed something different over the final month of the season in team morale.
"Sometimes guys, they're defeated before they even step on the field," he said.
Another player said there was an issue lurking in the locker room: Not enough aggressive, vocal leadership from fellow players to get the team on track.
During Pederson's tenure as the Philadelphia Eagles head coach, he had leaders such as Brandon Graham, Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox. If there was something that needed to be said, they were the ones who said it.
Players said the team's leaders -- Engram, Kirk, Lawrence, Hines-Allen and Oluokun -- had a lead-by-example, quieter style.
But the Jaguars needed someone more vocal, one player said, especially as the season started to spiral out of control.
"Nobody's angry," the player said during the middle of the season. "[I] wish there was some of that."
Etienne echoed that statement heading into Week 18.
"We don't take things personal enough," he said. "... Everyone likes to play us because they think they're going to have a great game. We have to change the narrative about our team, just the way we work, what we put on film.
"So be pissed off ... stop being a stepping stone for others and just start stepping on others."
At season's end, Lawrence said they needed to find the same confidence the team had in the second half of 2022, when they won six of their last seven games to win the AFC South and rallied from a 27-0 deficit to beat the Los Angeles Chargers in a wild-card playoff game.
"It seems like we've lost that in the past year-and-a-half or so for whatever reason, and we've got to get that back," Lawrence said. "That's something that us as leaders on the team really have to look at and we've got to take our part too. This isn't just, we fired Coach Pederson, so now that's all on him. It's on us as players too."
THERE IS BELIEF inside the organization the Jaguars can return to contention in the AFC South in 2025.
The quarterback is in place, Thomas is among the league's elite receivers, and Walker and Hines-Allen are a solid pass-rush duo (46 combined sacks the past two seasons).
The Jaguars have 10 draft picks (including No. 5 overall), no players in line for an immediate contract extension (the team has fifth-year option decisions on Walker and LB Devin Lloyd), and approximately $36 million in salary cap space, per OverTheCap.com.
"When you look at where we were leading into the '22 season, and going from where we were in '21 to '22, I don't think there's any reason why we can't repeat that," Baalke said. "... I do think this thing can be flipped and be flipped quick."
The Jaguars requested interviews with 10 candidates: Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, Las Vegas Raiders DC Patrick Graham, Kansas City Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo, former New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh, Tampa Bay Buccaneers OC Liam Coen, Vikings DC Brian Flores, Buffalo Bills OC Joe Brady, Eagles OC Kellen Moore, and Baltimore Ravens OC Todd Monken.
Spagnuolo (11-41 in three-plus seasons with the St. Louis Rams and New York Giants), Saleh (20-36 in three-plus seasons with the Jets) and Flores (24-25 in three seasons with the Dolphins) are the only candidates with previous NFL head coaching experience. All three have defensive backgrounds, but all those facts are irrelevant as far as Lawrence is concerned.
"Whether it's an offensive coach or a defensive coach, just [hire] the guy that's going to instill that culture," Lawrence said, "that toughness into our team and just that confidence that it doesn't matter who we're playing, when we're playing, just spot the ball and we can beat anybody."
Lawrence said the bottom line is the players failed to play at a high level.
"We can't just think just because some changes are made, staff and everything around us, that it's all going to [be fixed]," he said. "We have to be the ones to really change our trajectory, to be honest.
"But I do have confidence in the type of people we have, the players we have, but this is a big offseason, and we have to really dial in and like I said, build that culture and become just a tough, hard-nosed, gritty team."