The Jacksonville Jaguars made a major coaching change Monday night when Mike Caldwell was fired as defensive coordinator along with several other defensive coaches. Don’t expect offensive coordinator Press Taylor to follow him out the door.
During a press conference Monday, Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson was complimentary of the job Taylor did in his first season as the full-time play-caller for the team.
“I thought it went good,” Pederson said. “Can it be better? Yeah, it can be better. I think at times, when you struggle offensively like we did at times, I don’t care who is calling plays, you might as well look at that thing with your eyes closed and just pick a play. Because it’s hard, it’s difficult; I’ve been there.”
Taylor, 35, has been Pederson’s protégé for nearly a decade now. After joining the Philadelphia Eagles coaching staff in 2013 as a quality control coach, he was elevated to assistant quarterbacks coach in Pederson’s first season at the helm of the franchise. Taylor eventually became the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator in Philadelphia before joining Pederson’s staff in Jacksonville as offensive coordinator in 2022.
Last season, Pederson and Taylor split play-calling duties, but those were handed off to the latter on a full-time basis in 2023. But the Jaguars offense didn’t live up to its lofty expectations and instead finished 13th in yards and points.
So what was the issue? According to Pederson, turnovers and a lack of continuity along the offensive line made things challenging for Taylor.
“You go up and down the field, you turn the ball over in the red zone,” Pederson said. “You just can’t do this, it’s not play calling, it’s not the scheme or the design of plays, it’s just having the urgency of ‘we have to protect the football better,’ things of that nature.
“I thought overall, Press did a nice job of organizing the offense, the game planning that we did, and even calling. I would have to go back and look at all the numbers, but I think points and different things like that, we were better (than last year). We can still get better on third down and in the red zone, all of that. He did a nice job.”
The Jaguars will likely spend the offseason trying to upgrade the interior of their offensive line after struggling to get any push at all in the run game. Wholesale changes to the offensive scheme and coaching staff don’t appear to be coming any time soon, though.
