JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The Jaguars don’t get much time to sit with a loss, and maybe that’s the point. A Week 3 trip back to EverBank Stadium gives Liam Coen’s team a fast chance to clean up what went wrong in the 20-13 loss to the Denver Broncos - and there’s plenty to sort through.
The biggest issue was the pass rush, or more accurately, the lack of one. Jacksonville finished with just six pressures as a defense, and even with a heavy blitz approach, it never really found a way to bother Bo Nix.
Denver kept changing the picture with play-action, bootlegs, screens and quick checkdowns, which kept the Jaguars from ever settling into a rhythm up front. Coen said the Broncos made life difficult by moving the launch point and taking away clean drop-back chances.
“I think they did a nice job of mixing some of their schemes, in terms of limiting maybe some of the true drop back ops that he had. They were moving the launch point.
They ran a lot of boots on early downs, which moved the launch point, got us chasing and running a little bit. They did a nice job, I think, of chipping when they needed to," Jaguars head coach Coen said Monday.
"And Bo [Broncos QB Bo Nix], I thought, did a really good job. He would get to the top of his drop, and maybe the routes hadn't declared yet, and he was checking it down a ton.
And even if we were rallying and tackling, it's still frustrating for the D-line. It's frustrating for those guys when, maybe it's even a longer down-and-distance situation, he checks it down.
Frustrating for sure, but I thought Denver did a nice job of mixing it up, some of the play action, moving the launch point, the boots. They threw a number of screens on the perimeter to spit the ball out.
It was a combination of they did a nice job of mixing it, and when we had some of those ops to go, we just didn't take advantage of them.”
The next stop gives Jacksonville a cleaner test. New England sits No. 7 in sack rate allowed and No. 16 in pressure rate allowed, and Josh McDaniels is not Sean Payton. The Patriots’ front is not the Broncos’ front either, which means this is the kind of matchup the Jaguars need to take advantage of if they want better answers in a hurry.
That urgency extends inside as well. Jacksonville’s interior defensive line has not produced nearly enough on passing downs.
Arik Armstead, DaVon Hamilton, Ruke Orhorhoro, Matt Dickerson and Albert Regis have combined for five pressures on 108 pass-rush snaps, according to NextGenStats. That number stands out even more when 79 NFL defenders have five pressures on their own this season.
The problem is bigger than one bad day. Over the past two seasons, the Jaguars have had trouble with top defensive fronts, and against Denver they allowed one of their highest pressure rates of the Liam Coen era. At times it looked like every starting offensive lineman was getting beat quickly enough to throw off the passing game before it could even get started.
If Jacksonville is going to be relevant later in the season, it has to handle elite pressure better than it did in Week 2. Denver won’t be the only front that gives this team trouble, and the upcoming stretch will keep asking the same question until the Jaguars answer it.
There is at least one area where the offense seems to be sorting itself out: the backfield. Bhayshul Tuten has steadily taken more of the work through two weeks, and the split has started to look less like a shared job and more like Tuten moving toward the top spot while Chris Rodriguez Jr. slides into a secondary role.
In Week 1, Tuten and Rodriguez were close in snaps, but Tuten still led the offense in touches and yards from scrimmage. In Week 2, he was on the field more often and handled the ball more frequently again.
Tuten’s usage already puts him No. 15 in carries, ahead of names like Quinshon Judkins and Javonte Williams, as well as some backs in other timeshares, but he still doesn’t quite feel like a full-blown feature back. That stands out even more because Jacksonville is No. 28 in pass rate through two weeks.
The way forward seems pretty clear: keep leaning into what happened in Week 2. Tuten was the hot hand, and the Jaguars kept feeding him. If that continues, Rodriguez’s role should keep trending in the same direction it started to go last week.
In Other News...
Jaguars Film Revealed A Few Bright Spots And Some Real Concerns
The Jaguars are moving on from a Week 2 loss to Denver with a trip to New England coming up, and the film review leaves them with a mixed bag as they try to steady things early in the season. Bhayshul Tuten stood out on the ground, Ventrell Miller turned in a solid defensive effort, and Dennis Gardeck helped bring pressure as Jacksonville looked for pockets of production on both sides of the ball.
Brian Thomas Jr., Arik Armstead and Montaric Brown were among the players who did not fare as well on tape, and those uneven performances matter more with the Patriots next on the schedule. The Jaguars need the good snaps to become the norm, because the margin for error is already thin and the film suggests there is still plenty to clean up before Week 3. [Read more 🡒]
Jaguars Loss Exposed A Defensive Problem Fans Cant Ignore
Bhayshul Tuten and Parker Washington gave the Jaguars some bright spots in Sundays 20-13 loss to Denver, but the broader picture was harder to shrug off. Jacksonvilles run defense held up well, and there were stretches where the offense found enough rhythm to stay within reach, yet the Broncos defensive front kept making life difficult for the line and disrupted the kind of consistency the Jaguars needed.
On the other side of the ball, the concerns were even harder to miss. Jacksonvilles pass rush never truly settled in, and the secondary had trouble keeping Denver from finding answers when the game tightened up. For a team trying to stack wins and build a dependable identity, the gap between those strong individual efforts and the overall defensive performance is the part that will linger. [Read more 🡒]
Jaguars Already Have A Travis Hunter Debate Liam Coen Can't Ignore
The Jaguars 20-13 loss to the Broncos in Week 2 did more than drop them in the standings. It also sharpened the conversation around Travis Hunter, whose early usage has already become a talking point in Jacksonville. Through the first part of the 2026 season, Hunter has been on the field for 58% of the defensive snaps and just 9% on offense, a split that has naturally drawn scrutiny given how much the team invested in his two-way ability.
Emmanuel Acho was among those pushing the issue, criticizing Liam Coen for not finding a larger role for Hunter on offense. The numbers so far reflect a player contributing in small doses on both sides, with one reception, one rush, five tackles and a pass defended. For a team trying to find its footing after an uneven start, the question around Hunter is no longer whether he can help - it is how much Coen is willing, or able, to let him do. [Read more 🡒]