Jaguars: No longer sad sacks?

Defense thinks it has players to end woes on pass rush.

JACKSONVILLE, FLA. — Malik Jackson shook his head several times as he tried to come up with the last Jacksonville Jaguars player to record double-digit sacks in a season. “John Henderson?” Close. The Jaguars haven’t had anyone reach the 10-sack mark since Bobby McCray in 2006.

“Who? ” J a c k s o n s a i d . “Never heard of him.”

Few have. McCray never had more than six sacks in any of his other five seasons. His career year earned him a $20 million contract with New Orleans in free agency and left Jacksonville with a decade-plus-long search for the franchise’s next double-digit guy.

The Jaguars are still looking as they open the season Sunday at Houston.

“We have a lot of potential to be great in this D-line and do things a lot of people haven’t done in a while,” Jackson said. “The great thing about this organization is it’s newer to the point where we can accomplish great things and have a lasting legacy here in Jacksonville with this team.

“It’s a great opportunity to break records and create records.”

Jacksonville likely needs to end its sad-sack streak to improve defensively. The unit finished sixth in the NFL in yards (321.7) in 2016, but lacked steady pressure on quarterbacks that leads to game-changing turnovers.

Still, Yannick Ngakoue set a team rookie record with eight sacks and Dante Fowler Jr. showed potential while returning from a knee injury that wiped out his first year. But neither was the complete and consistent edge-rusher Jacksonville has sought for so long.

Jaguars czar Tom Coughlin and general manager Dave Caldwell revamped the line by parting ways with Jared Odrick, Sen’Derrick Marks and Roy Miller in the offseason and signing veteran defensive end Calais Campbell to a four-year, $60 million contract in free agency. Campbell’s role is to be a disruptive presence and a guiding force.

“That’s a guy that does it the right way all the time, each year,” Ngakoue said. “I sit next to him every time we have meetings and soak in every bit of information I can.”

Throw in Jackson, who signed a six-year, $86.1 million contract in 2016, and the Jaguars believe they’ve got a group capable of controlling the line of scrimmage.

They haven’t had that since Henderson and Marcus Stroud anchored the front in the 2000s, the one that helped McCray get 10 sacks.