2011 Preview By The Numbers: Steelers vs. Jacksonville Jaguars

In week six of the upcoming NFL season, the Steelers will bring the Jacksonville Jaguars in for some pirogi and football. Interestingly, they will be playing their fourth of the four AFC South teams in a row.

Jack Del Rio is still the head coach in northern Florida (Umm, NoFlo?), but one has to wonder if the Jaguars are lighting the kindling under his office chair. Poor attendance and seasons ending in December or early January are hardly a recipe for contract extensions in the NFL.

The Jaguars finished 8-8 last year, second in a miserable division. They won only one game against a eventual playoff opponent (Indy in week 4). One other win was against a team that would eventually finish with a .500 record (Oakland). The rest of the teams they beat were the dregs of the NFL in 2010.

In their eight losses, however, they repeatedly got schooled by teams that either made the playoffs or had a real chance to make it. Only a loss to the underachieving Redskins broke that trend. Their average margin of loss in their eight losses was more than 16 points. No wonder they were blacking out games in NoFlo.

Recent History

The Jaguars have been a tough out for the Steelers over the years. In their last five meetings, the Jags have beaten the Men of Steel four times. Their most recent meetings both took place during the 2008 calendar year, but they were in different seasons and had very different results.

In week five of the 2008 regular season, the Men of Steel traveled to Jacksonville. Big Ben bounced back from an early interception returned for a touchdown with a total of 309 passing yards and three TDs, and the Steelers still only won by five. Ben received AFC Offensive Player of the Week honors, and the game would be named the NFL’s Game of the Week.

Earlier in 2008, during the 2007-08 playoffs, the Steelers hosted the Jags in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.

You could make a case that the Steelers’ historically bad special teams cost them the game. You could also say that it was another interception returned for a TD. Or a long pass play to a running back.

After opening the game with a long drive and a touchdown, the Steelers gave up a 96-yard kickoff return to Maurice “Mo-Jo Drew” Jones-Drew. “Fragile” Fred Taylor would take the ball in from the Steelers’ 1-yard-line.

An interception returned for a touchdown and a 43-yard pass to “Mo-Jo” Drew put the Jags in the lead.

The Steelers would regain the lead in the fourth quarter only to see the Jags go up for good on the foot of kicker Josh Scobee. After the field goal, the Steelers fumbled away their chance to make a last drive to win and walked off their own field, one and done.

If not for the long kickoff return, or the interception, or the long pass to Jones-Drew, the Steelers might have won.

Then again, if a frog had wings…

Jacksonville’s Offense vs. Pittsburgh’s Defense

Unlike years past, as when Byron Leftwich was wearing teal instead of classic Black and Gold, the Jags offense struggled last year. They basically have one player on offense.

Granted, Maurice Jones-Drews is a hell of a player, but football is very much a team sport. He doesn’t throw or catch many passes. He doesn’t play defense. If you can stop Mo-Jo, you can stop the Jags.

Admittedly, stopping him can be tricky. He had 1324 yards (fifth in the league) with a 4.4 yard per carry average, but only 5 touchdowns. In fact, he was one of only three 1000-yard backs who didn’t have more than five TDs. (Jamal Charles in Kansas City and Ray Rice in Baltimore were the others). Not having seen any Jacksonville games last year, I can only assume that he was not their first option in the red zone. It makes you wonder why they would go away from their best player at a critical time in the game, if that was the case. A quick look at the numbers shows that David Garrard had the same number of rushing TDs as Mo-Jo. Umm, Garrard is the Jags’ quarterback. Can you imagine Ben, or Peyton, or Brady having as many rushing TDs as their featured back? Me, neither.

The Jags were 3rd in the league in rushing yards per game. That is very nice, but it is really all they had last year. They will struggle to find yards on the ground against the Steel Curtain, as we all know, which leads us to the passing game.

In a match-up of weakness against weakness, the Jags 27th ranked passing game will probably have a tough time even against the Steelers middling pass defense. The Steelers are usually pretty effective against average quarterbacks, seeming to struggle the most against QBs that they cannot consistently pressure into mistakes. Think Brady, Peyton, and Brees.

Fortunately, none of those guys plays for the Jaguars. The Jags’ quarterback situation is not terrific. They have David Garrard as their starter. He replaced Leftwich when the latter was released in 2007. Garrard is serviceable, and can show flashes of brilliance, but as with the rest of the team, those flashes are usually against teams that will playing golf in January, not football.

Garrard had 23 touchdowns in 2010 against 15 picks. Ten of those touchdowns were against the Broncos, Bills and Cowboys. Not exactly the first places to look for defensive Pro Bowl starters.

They have Todd Bouman and Trent Edwards on their roster right now backing up Garrard. Bouman has played on five NFL teams, none of them with any consistent success. Edwards was cut by the Bills. Enough said there. One of them will be looking for work when the free agent market opens at the end of the lockout because of who the Jags took in the draft.

Blaine Gabbert was drafted and is expected to be groomed into their QB of the future. If he finds his way into the game against the Black and Gold, he will most likely begin to regret his decision to play football.

Regardless of who is taking the snaps, they do not have that many options to throw the ball to.

The Jags best receiver in 2010 was Mike Thomas. He was 30th in the NFL for receptions (66) and 48th in the league for receiving yards per game (51.2). TE Marcedes Lewis had an impressive 10 touchdowns, so the Steelers will have to pay some attention to him, especially in the red zone. They drafted a receiver in the fourth round, but I can’t see him making a huge impact on this offense right away. Historically, recievers take a few years to start having a real effect.

Given their struggles against quality opponents, I can’t see the Jaguars scoring a ton of points against the defending AFC champs.

Jacksonville’s Defense vs. Pittsburgh’s Offense

Jaguars’ head coach Jack Del Rio is a defensive guy and usually his defenses are solid if not very flashy. Given their struggles last year to stop good teams from scoring, however, it is a complete mystery why the Jags did not take a defensive player until the latter half of the fourth round, and the beginning of the fifth. Even then, they did not get a linebacker or D-lineman. This has to be considered a major whiff in the draft for the Jags.

It must irk Del Rio that the Jags defense allowed 250.2 yards per game through the air, which ranks them 28th in the NFL.  What must really keep him up at night, however, is the 121.6 rushing yards per game they allowed last year (22nd in the league).

This is really bad news for fans of Jacksonville. The Steelers had a very balanced attack last year. Rashard Mendenhall had a very good season running the ball and Ben Roethlisberger makes defensive backs play defense a lot longer than they are used to.

Even before the draft, the young Steelers receivers finding their places in the offense last year, as well as great veterans Hines Ward and Heath Miller, must have had defensive coordinators taking Malox and Pepto intravenously. Now that they have shored up their O-line, it’s going to be tougher to stop the Steelers offense.

It will be exceedingly difficult for a poor Jaguars defense to stop the Steelers from going up and down the field on them at will, which is exactly what happened to them last year whenever they played a better than average football team.

Location, Location, Location

The Jaguars were not very good on the road, or anywhere else for that matter. They lost five games on the road which included losses by 17 or more points in three games.

Surprisingly, the Steelers had a harder time defending Heinz Field than going on the road. Of their four regular season losses, three of them were in Pittsburgh. Of course, one of those was to the Ravens when the Steelers did not have Ben Roethlisberger.

The numbers would seem to indicate that the Jaguars will have a tough time winning in Heinz Field, but there is this one glaring fact: In 10 games against the Jaguars played in Pittsburgh, the Steelers are 5-5. Like I said, they are a tough out for the Men of Steel.

My Take

On paper, the Steelers should win this game in a walk, but it is a trap game. The trip to the desert right after this game, as well as games against the Patriots, Ravens, and Bengals to follow could see the team looking ahead.

That would be a very bad mistake because the Jags are beatable. They did win eight games last year without much talent on either side of the ball once you get past Jones-Drew, but they lost badly to several good teams.

Coach Tomlin, I’m sure, is well aware of this and will have the Men of Steel ready to play and take win over a team they should beat.