Jaguars Change Defensive Spots & Other Notes

From Jacksonville, Florida

During the week of preparation for the Jaguars, the Chiefs practiced against the 3-4 defensive scheme that Jacksonville has used most of the season.

But when they came out for their first play on Sunday, the Jaguars were playing a 4-3 defense.

There’s no question it caused some shuffling of what the Chiefs wanted to do offensively.

“You don’t know why they’re playing the way their playing but we recognized it pretty quickly, even though it wasn’t what we practiced against,” said Todd Haley. I thought for the most part we had an idea of what was going on, but it was for sure something different than we prepared for during the week.”

Why the change?

“We wanted to give ourselves a chance to rush the quarterback a little better on early downs,” said Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio. “I feel like we’re a team that can do either depending on what we decide we want to do. Today we elected to major in the 4-3.”

Not until the last two drives in the fourth quarter was the Chiefs offense able to get any production against the Jacksonville defense. They had 301 offensive yards, but after 55 minutes of play, they had only 167 yards.

“I think we handled it pretty well,” said QB Matt Cassel. “There’s no question we had to make some adjustments, but I think we got those down pretty quickly.”

A BUNCH OF ACTION FOR NOTHING

As the first half was coming to an end, the Chiefs decided to attempt a 56-yard FG with Ryan Succop. They were headed towards the north end of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, or into the wind. Succop had made several field goals in pre-game warm-ups from 50 yards, but had not tried from five yards further back.

Succop’s kick actually looked pretty good as it left his foot and started to rise. But right around the five-yard line, the wind knocked it down and it was short. The kick fell into the hands of Jaguars CB Rashean Mathis and that’s when the fun started.

Mathis brought the ball out of the end zone and headed right; he broke past several Chiefs, and was then in open field, chugging down the sidelines towards a possible touchdown. Finally, at the Chiefs 15-yard line, punter and holder Dustin Colquitt knocked him out of bounds. The return was 91 yards total, but ended up being just forgotten yardage.

Way downfield, the Jaguars were hit with an illegal block in the back penalty, so even had Mathis scored the TD would have been wiped out by the flag.

Colquitt would have liked to have had that information before he threw himself at Mathis.

“You’ve got to do what you have to do at the time,” said Colquitt, who banged up his shoulder a bit on the play but returned in the second half.

SPECIAL TEAMS UPDATE

Succop was two of three on FGS, hitting from 21 and 45 yards and missing from 56 yards. He kicked off for distance three times, sending the opening kickoff of the game out of the end zone. Succop’s other kicks dropped at the goal line and one-yard deep in the end zone. Overall, Jacksonville had 35 yards on kickoff returns, with none longer than 19 yards.

Colquitt kicked seven times and averaged 46.6 yards a punt, including a 70 yarder in the first half with the wind at his back. His net average was 40.3 yards, as he had a number of field position punts, including four inside the 20-yard line.

But the punt coverage unit that was among the best in the NFL got gashed for the first time this year, as Jaguars WR Mike Thomas had a 44-yard return that set up the final touchdown for Jacksonville. Of those seven punts, that was the only return yardage.

The Chiefs continue to get nothing from their return game. With Jamaal Charles getting more time with the offense, a lot of the return game fell to Dantrell Savage. He took back one punt for two yards and two kickoffs for a total of 28 yards. Charles had two kick returns for 21 yards.

ZEBRA-REPORT

Referee Bill Leavy’s crew was not a major part of the action, which is typical of this group. The Chiefs were flagged just one time in the game: an offensive pass interference call against WR Dwayne Bowe.

The Jaguars took five penalties for 31 yards. Jacksonville coach Jack Del Rio threw the challenge flag on the fumble by WR Torry Holt in the second quarter. The replay review upheld the call on the field.

PERSONNEL MATTERS

The surprise of the pre-game was the decision to make WR Bobby Wade inactive for the game. Wade was not injured and given he was one of the starters at wide receiver and the team’s punt returner, it was a surprise decision.

Other Chiefs game-day inactive players were rookies CB Donald Washington, TE Jake O’Connell and LB Pierre Walters, injured FS Jon McGraw and TE Brad Cottam and OT Ikechuku Ndukwe. The inactive third quarterback was Matt Gutierrez.

The game-day inactive players for the Jaguars were WR Tiquan Underwood, S Anthony Smith, CB Brian Witherspoon, LB Adam Seward, DT Derek Landri, OL Maurice Williams, OT Jordan Black and DT Greg Peterson. Jacksonville has only two quarterbacks on their active roster.

FS DaJuan Morgan, WR Chris Chambers and G Andy Alleman made their first starts in a Kansas City uniform. Morgan was in for McGraw and Alleman replaced Mike Goff at right guard. Goff came up with a shoulder injury at the end of the practice week. He was dressed but was in for just a single play, when Alleman sprained an ankle.

AND OTHER STUFF

The announced ticket sale for the game was 45,516, but that included several thousand members of the military who were there in honor of Veteran’s Day coming this week … before the game a B-2 bomber from Whiteman Air Force Base did a flyover … the Chiefs won the opening toss and for the second consecutive game, they elected to defer … the receiver QB Matt Cassel looked for most often was WR Lance Long. He was the target 11 times, catching eight passes for 74 yards … When the Jaguars needed one yard for a first down, they didn’t bother to hand off; QB David Garrard took it himself. He ran nine times for 29 yards … WR Torry Holt caught the 900th pass of his career in the second quarter. He is the 10th receiver in NFL history to reach 900 and he was the second fastest to that mark, doing it in 166 games. The only other receiver who got their faster was Marvin Harrison of the Colts, who did it in 149 games.