Film study: Minshew Madness finally stubs its toe in Jaguars loss to Saints

June 30, 2024

Everybody adjusts to something new eventually. And if you’re the new thing in question, days like this happen in a league that rarely offers up much room for error.

“Minshew Madness” got off to a rousing start earlier this year when Jaguars’ sixth-round pick Gardner Minshew completed roughly 74 percent of his throws during his first three starts of the season in place of the injured Nick Foles. Minshew’s overall lack of hesitation and confidence with his arm created consistent production and 7.9 yards per attempt through his first five games.

Teams do take notes, though. And Sunday in Jacksonville, Minshew found himself across from a Saints defense that had entered the game with back-to-back productive days in wins over younger quarterbacks (Dak Prescott, Jameis Winston). The Saints adjusted. Minshew struggled.

And now it’s time for the Jaguars to make their adjustments.

“It was a tough day; they are a good team,” Minshew told reporters after going 14 of 29 for 163 yards and an interception in a 13-6 loss. “Missed some balls that I can’t miss. They played good coverage at times and got after us up front at times. We’ll go look at the film and figure out what we need to fix.”

If there’s one thing New Orleans accomplished above all, it was taking away Minshew’s quick reads before forcing him to deal with a healthy mixture of coverage looks.

The Jaguars saw a lot of pure zone coverage Sunday and a fair amount of cover-2 man coverage, with two deep safeties over the top and everyone else in man-to-man underneath. There were also some examples of bracket coverage that gave the Jaguars quarterback trouble.

Minshew did a solid job of showing some patience and dealing with coverage during the Jags’ long field-goal drive at the end of the first half, but as the second half wore on, things got a little choppy.

Here’s a second-and-10 play on Jacksonville’s first possession of the third quarter. Minshew’s got two vertical routes toward the boundary, with leading receiver — and favorite target — D.J. Chark lined up in the slot. His first read off the snap is toward the verticals. But as you can see, the Saints are going to bracket Chark with a safety over the top and a linebacker underneath. That’s not going to work.

Jacksonville does get Dede Westbrook open underneath on a rub concept that could’ve put the Jaguars in third-and-medium. But by the time Minshew works down his progression against the coverage, Westbrook’s window starts to close. The ball is thrown a bit late, and it’s not catchable.

On the very next snap, New Orleans comes back with cover-2 man. Again, that means two safeties are going to drop deep to take away anything over the top as defensive backs match up in man coverage with all of the underneath routes.

As you can see, everything in the flat is covered. The Saints take away the sideline go-route with a safety over the top. And when Minshew’s in doubt, he’s going to try to get the ball to Chark. The Saints countered this for most of the game with one-time Pro Bowl corner Marshon Lattimore shadowing Chark.

There aren’t any quick, easy reads here. So the ball gets forced over the middle to Chark. The throw is a bit off, and Lattimore has an interception.

“They have two top corners with Lattimore being a Pro Bowl-type guy,” Jaguars coach Doug Marrone said afterward. “The two safeties have really great range. I saw a lot of two-man today, so they have help over the top and could be aggressive down underneath. At the end of the day, do we sit here and say we have to do a better job? Absolutely. No doubt about it. But at the end of the day, sometimes you have to say, ‘Shit, those guys are pretty darn good, and they covered our ass and they won that battle.’”

When Jacksonville can make life easier on Minshew and get something quick and easy, the rookie generally delivers. He has proven that so far this season as one of the league’s early surprises.

Here’s an example of some blown coverage that results in Minshew’s first look, Westbrook, getting open with some good space in front of him. The result is a nice chunk play that gets Jacksonville across midfield and into possible scoring position.

There’s no hesitation there. The second he sees Westbrook work open, he rips the ball to him in stride and gives his receiver an opportunity to make a play after the catch. This is why Minshew was drafted: He’s accurate and he gets rid of the ball without too much time wasted.

But when things get a little tighter and he has to progress through an entire concept, the ball can stick a bit. Jacksonville didn’t help him, at times, with its protection up front, which resulted in some broken pockets and wrecked timing patterns.

Ideally, if Minshew has more time here, he would be able to work his way back across cover zero and find Chark on a spacing concept to the wide side of the field. You can see Chark, who is lined up off the line and at the top of the screen, come open on a timing pattern over the middle after the tight end and the slot receiver run defenders out of the window to create space.

That doesn’t happen, though, as Minshew gets pressure in his face before he even has a chance to turn and deliver the ball for a possible first down to keep this drive alive. Instead, the Jags have to settle for another field goal.

“When they covered us, they were in cover-2 man throughout the game,” Chark said afterward. “Personally, on my end, Marshon Lattimore did a very good job by covering me along with the safety which made it harder for me to run my routes on my end of the field. We had to change up the scheme and get to the middle of the field, but they had a pretty good defensive game plan coming into the game and not giving up too many yards to our offense.”

A tough day at the office, to be sure. But certainly one Minshew and the Jaguars can learn from.

(Photo: Reinhold Matay / USA Today)

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