The Jacksonville Jaguars are expecting to have another dominant defense in 2019, beginning with their defensive line.
This season, Jacksonville plans on pairing Josh Allen and Yannick Ngakoue together at defensive end.
Article Continues Below“It’s obvious we have to get our best players on the field,” Wash said. “So obviously we’ve got two very good defensive ends in Josh and Yannick. We’ve got to come up with ways to get them both on the grass at the same time. . . . We have to be able to tweak our system a little bit, but that’s our job as coaches is to put them in position to be successful and hopefully we can do.”
In this year's draft, the Jaguars lucked out when the New York Giants selected quarterback Daniel Jones with the sixth overall pick. Just one pick later, Jacksonville was able to secure Josh Allen out of Kentucky to bolster their pass rush.
Despite their talent on the defensive side of the ball, Jacksonville ranked 22nd in the NFL in sacks in 2018 with 37 total. The Jaguars want to return to having the pass rush that they had in 2017 when they had 55 sacks (second-most in NFL).
In college at Kentucky, Allen was mainly utilized as an outside linebacker as an edge rusher for their defense. The rookie edge-defender recorded 31 sacks, 40.5 tackles for loss, and 11 forced fumbles in his final three seasons in college.
For Yannick Ngakoue, the 24-year-old defensive end has accumulated 29.5 sacks, 29 tackles for loss, and 10 forced fumbles in his first three seasons in the NFL. Therefore, we could see the beginning of one of the league's best pass-rushing duos in Jacksonville this season.