The Jaguars defense
looks to get back on track as Jacksonville plays host to South Division foe Indianapolis.
JACKSONVILLE — Jaguars defensive coordinator Todd Wash was honest with his group on Monday, hours after a 27-24 loss at the Arizona Cardinals dropped Jacksonville to 7-4.
“Like I told them, we didn’t do enough to win the game,” Wash said. “I don’t really care what the offense does. I tell our guys we have to do whatever we can to win. That’s the expectation of our room and we didn’t do that.”
Wash wants to see his defense more on-point this afternoon at home against Indianapolis (3-8).
“I think they better have a chip on their shoulders when they come out this week,” Wash said. “We didn’t execute last week. We didn’t have the energy we normally play with.
“We had some [assignment] busts and allowed two touchdowns [29 and 52 yards] and that’s something we cannot do. If we execute and focus, good things are going to happen for us.”
Coach Doug Marrone used “greedy” to describe authorizing a pass play late in the game, Wash used “greedy” to describe how the Jaguars rushed Arizona quarterback Blaine Gabbert.
“Late in the game, we started to get a little greedy with our rush and we lost contain, especially against an athletic guy like this week,” Wash said.
This week’s opposing quarterback is Jacoby Brissett, who was sacked 10 times by the Jaguars in Week 7.
“He’s done a lot better,” Wash said. “Early on in the season, he was holding the ball and it took a little bit more time to get through the progressions, which allowed us to get some good pressure. But you see with more and more reps he’s had, he’s getting rid of the football faster and obviously he makes a lot of good decisions and doesn’t turn the ball over.”
Brissett has only five interceptions in 323 pass attempts. He would be smart to follow Arizona’s blueprint in having Gabbert throw quickly. Twenty-seven of Gabbert’s pass attempts were released in under 2.51 seconds.
Following Friday’s practice, the Jaguars ruled out receiver Allen Hurns (ankle), linebacker Telvin Smith (concussion) and offensive tackle Josh Wells (concussion).
Hurns will miss his third straight game and Smith is out after being injured against Arizona. Wells was added to the injury report following Thursday’s practice after reporting symptoms to the training staff.
Listed as questionable are right tackle Jermey Parnell (knee), left guard Patrick Omameh (quad) and linebacker Lerentee McCray (hamstring).
Parnell could return after missing three straight games.