Gene Frenette: Ax falling on Jaguars' Mike Caldwell, assistants no surprise after collapse

The Black Monday ax that fell on Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell and nearly his entire staff was more predictable than surprising.

If any part of the Jaguars deserved to pay the ultimate price for an epic collapse that gifted the AFC South to the Houston Texans — albeit all facets of the organization must bear some blame — the bulk of Caldwell's defense earned that pink slip.

No doubt, there were shortcomings from a turnover-prone Trevor Lawrence and an inconsistent offensive line that diminished the running game, but nothing regressed more with the season on the line than Caldwell’s defense.

More Gene Frenette: Jaguars choking away AFC South by losing to Titans a tough memory to forget

Doug Pederson obviously drew the same conclusion, though he declined to reveal anything about staff changes at his Monday afternoon news conference, just two hours before news broke about divorce proceedings.

The Jaguars announced another dismissal Tuesday morning in running backs coach Bernie Parmalee and added assistant offensive line coach Todd Washington's contract would not be renewed.

But the repercussions from a disappointing finish clearly fell on one side of the ball. Other than Josh Allen and Travon Walker being the NFL’s best pass-rush combo (27.5 sacks), every other aspect of Caldwell’s defense fizzled during the second half of the season.

It couldn’t keep Cincinnati Bengals backup quarterback Jake Browning from completing 32 of 37 passes for 354 passing yards in a 34-31 overtime win, a Monday Night Football stage letdown that began the downward spiral of five losses in the last six games.

Against the Cleveland Browns, three busted coverages led to touchdowns of 30, 34 and 41 yards. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers scored on six straight possessions.

On and on, the defense wilted after playing its best ball since 2017 during the first half of 2023, which featured 18 takeaways and 52 pass defenses, ranked either first or second in the NFL through eight games.

Second-half fall from grace

But after the Jaguars’ Week 9 bye, Caldwell’s defense went bye-bye.

It had a fall so alarming and precipitous, Pederson felt compelled to change things up in response to his team’s embarrassing crumble, which dropped the Jaguars out of the AFC playoff picture.

In the first half, Jaguars opponents had 16 touchdowns and 10 field goals in 96 opponent possessions, with the defense collecting 52 pass breakups and never allowing a touchdown after an offensive turnover.

In the second half, those numbers looked vastly different. The defense allowed 26 touchdowns, 11 field goals in 93 possessions, had only 32 pass breakups and opponents scored 10 TDs following an offensive turnover.

And unlike the offense, which had key starters Cam Robinson, Christian Kirk and Zay Jones miss significant time, the entire defense was relatively healthy outside of cornerback Tyson Campbell (6 missed games) and defensive tackle Davon Hamilton (9 missed games). Kirk missing the last five games was certainly more impactful to the offense than any absence on defense.

At his Monday press conference, Pederson emphasized that both the offense and defense deserved culpability for the disappointing 9-8 record, but there was a clear lean toward the latter being more of a failure.

He staunchly defended offensive coordinator Press Taylor in his first season as a full-time play-caller, but lamented the defensive shortcomings with more pointed concerns.

“The offensive struggles kept us from scoring, kept us from winning games,” said Pederson. “The defensive struggles and breakdowns kept them … if we communicate better and we execute better, if we’re disciplined in the gaps and schemes, the run integrity, we’re better on the defensive side. Missed tackles, tackle better, we’re a better team.

“This is the complementary part of football that I don’t think we were very good in this year.”

Not much room for misinterpretation there. Of course, coming 24 hours after Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry trucked Caldwell’s defense for a season-high 153 yards on 19 carries, Pederson justifiably reached a breaking point.

The timing of when Pederson informed Caldwell and seven assistants — including key position coaches Brentson Buckner (D-line), Tony Gilbert (inside linebackers), Cody Grimm (safeties), DeShea Townsend (cornerbacks/passing game coordinator) and Bob Sutton (senior defensive assistant) — is immaterial.

The bigger point is, the defense took a massive step backwards down the stretch. Many parts of it outside of pass-rushers Allen and Walker went in the wrong direction.

Did Jaguars scapegoat Caldwell?

Considering the defense played admirably in the first half of 2023 and the Jaguars still had a winning record, there’ll be some debate whether Caldwell and some of his lieutenants were unjustly fired.

The reality is job security in the NFL is tied to performance. Unquestionably, there was a significant correlation between the Jaguars losing their grip on the AFC South lead and how awful most of the defense looked after the bye week.

It was telling that outside linebackers coach Bill Shuey, who was responsible for getting the most mileage out of the pass-rushers, didn’t get a pink slip. He got unprecedented production from Allen and Walker, so Pederson retained Shuey.    

Caldwell and everybody who got fired have been in the NFL long enough to know free-falling like the Jaguars did is often a job-killer.

And ending the season by having Henry bully the defense, which had a minimum eight-man box on 11 of his 19 runs, was a terrible look.

Probably more than any other disastrous game, Henry trampling Caldwell’s defense running behind one of the NFL's worst offensive lines cost a lot of people their jobs. It’s doubtful that many coaches would be unemployed had the Jaguars won the AFC South and possibly added a home playoff victory like they did in 2022.

“That’s the whole game plan, right?” Pederson said after the Titans’ game about containing Henry. “That’s what you got to do, and you know that coming in. That’s the frustrating part, that’s the disappointing part. You know what’s coming and you still can’t stop it.”

In other words, that was game, set, match for Caldwell and much of his defensive staff. That was Pederson’s breaking point with a coordinator who got plenty of love for his work in the first half, only to see the defense do a 180.

“We just can’t have the collapse like we did this year because you feel like now the season’s sort of wasted, right,” Pederson said Monday. “You had a great opportunity to win the division and we didn’t.”

So Pederson decided somebody had to pay the price for this epic failure. Caldwell, with 27 NFL seasons as a player or coach, had to know he put himself and others in employment jeopardy.

Pederson did what he felt had to be done. The next time the Jaguars finish so poorly, he knows the ax could just as easily fall elsewhere, including on him.

Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540; Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @genefrenette 

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jaguars' divorce: Pederson axing Caldwell, defensive coaches no surprise