The Jacksonville Jaguars weren’t just happy to be playing in the AFC Championship Game against the New England Patriots on Sunday. They firmly believed that a win here was more than likely.
But when New England came back from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit, the Jaguars had no idea what hit them. Sure Tom Brady doing Tom Brady things played a major role here. That doesn’t mean the Jaguars themselves didn’t struggle closing out the game.
Following their heartbreaking loss, Pro Bowl corner A.J. Bouye — fresh off a tremendous first season in Jacksonville — took time to throw his coaching staff completely under the bus.
That was Jacksonville CB A.J. Bouye's complaint after the game: "We just started playing soft. We started calling more zone, and they just knew what we were going to run. We were running back-to-back the same calls. … and they just had beaters for it." https://t.co/EhqVsEf5NN
— Christopher Gasper (@cgasper) January 22, 2018
To be perfectly clear here, Bouye likely isn’t wrong. Defenses can’t continue to show the same coverage against Brady and not expect to be torched. That happened all too often during the Patriots’ comeback in the fourth quarter on Sunday.
Add in the fact Jacksonville’s usually ball-hawking and aggressive defense went more with zone, and this is magnified even further.
For Bouye, it’s apparent that defensive coordinator Todd Wash struggled going up against the force that is Josh McDaniels late in Sunday’s loss. This came after Wash looked to be an absolute genius through the first 28 minutes of the game.
Even then, Bouye should have addressed these issues with his staff rather than making them public. It’s a learning game for these young Jags defenders, something the staff will let Bouye know all about here soon.