Previewing the Jaguars’ defense vs. the Eagles’ offense

The Jacksonville Jaguars’ defense has struggled recently, but still rank as a top tier unit over the life of the season and will present unique challenges to the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles’ offense. In this final preview, The Kist & Solak Show dives deep into what the Jaguars do schematically and how it fits their talent-laden unit.

Two major topics concerning the Jaguars defense were their pass rush looks and their deployment of three safety sets against 12/13 personnel. Due to the lack of dependable weapons at receiver outside of Alshon Jeffery and Nelson Agholor, the Eagles run a combination of two and three tight end sets 46% of the time, a league high.

The Jaguars are facing 12/13 sets 33% of the time, which is the 3rd highest frequency due to their weakness against it last year. In the offseason, to combat this trend, they drafted safety Ronnie Harrison in the third round to bring him in on big nickel and big base sets (where they only field one cornerback). The Eagles ability to be effective against this look will play a big part in their success on Sunday.

We also placed bets on the Eagles’ running game, placing the over/under of rush yards at 75. Despite ranking 9th in rush defense DVOA (per Football Outsiders) for the season, the Jaguars have given up over 100 yards five times this year, including 206 to the Dallas Cowboys two weeks ago. The Eagles have gone over 100 yards four times this year, but only 58 last week. How much faith do we have in running back group right now? Not much.

Also on the show, we celebrating achieving over 500 five star ratings by reading the best iTunes reviews and answer the question “do you guys know the names of coverages and routes or something?” All that and more on The Kist & Solak Show #34; stream it on the media player below or click here if the player doesn’t load. FLY EAGLES FLY!