5 Takeaways from Ryan Nielsen’s first presser
via Alessandra Pontbriand/Twitter
The Jacksonville Jaguars introduced newly-hired defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen on Thursday. What were his most telling quotes? The Jacksonville Jaguars introduced Ryan Nielsen as its new defensive coordinator at a press conference on Thursday afternoon.
Nielsen was officially hired on January 22nd after a one-year stint as the Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator. It was his first job in that role following six seasons as an assistant coach with the New Orleans Saints.
Here are all the quotes you need to know from Nielsen’s introductory presser.
Begins with “attack” and “aggressive”
“First of all, we’re going to be- kind of the overview of everything is we want to be attacking and aggressive in everything that we do. How we fit the run, how we attack blocks, how we play coverage. We want to be a forward-leaning, forward-running, going-forward defense. And you’re going to say, well what about in the secondary and backpedal and all that but when we make our break we’re coming out of that break to go hit you.
“That’s kind of the, the two things that every day that the players come in we want to stress. There’s some things, fundamental things: tackling, takeaways, ball disruption, and pursuit. And that’s what we’re going to be about. Tackling, takeaways, ball disruption- you have to be a good tackling defense to be a good defense. Takeaways are the number one way to limit points, ball disruption is making the offense play not on time. We’re taking away a running lane, or making a ball bounce, or disrupting the quarterback. And then pursuit. Keeping the ball inside, proper angles, running and hitting.
“That’s what we’re going to be about, that’s what we’re going to stress, that’s gonna be the first thing we talk about with the guys before we even start talking scheme or stance or anything like that. That will be our foundation and we’ll go from there.”
Nielsen’s trademark words in Atlanta were ATTACK! and AGGRESSIVE!, so it’s no surprise that those were nearly the first words out of his mouth in Jacksonville. While many NFL defenses are deploying bend-don’t-break coverages to compensate for the Patrick Mahomeses and Josh Allens of the world, Nielsen is among the coordinators who want to set the tone and make opposing offenses play by his rules (and rightfully so, as even good-not-great passers like Brock Purdy can dice up softer shells). Being a fast-paced unit doesn’t come without risk, but good coaching can offset poor tackling and heighten takeaway opportunities.
The people in the building drew Nielsen to the Jaguars
“A lot of things [made Jacksonville an attractive landing spot]. When you start looking at an opportunity, you look at the people in the building. You look at the head coach. Coach Pederson, did not know him personally before this, but you do your research, and you talk to people that have worked with him, know him, was fortunate enough to be on his staff. I had a coach that had worked for Coach Pederson before, and he said some unbelievable things about him.
“… You want to be around good people. That was the first thing. And then Trent, you hear the same things. You start working your way down. Mr. Khan, the owner, I mean- what’s the organization about, how is the owner, and then, didn’t know that they built the facility.
“And then you start doing the roster research, and you kinda know a little bit but then as you start digging into this thing you’re like, you know what. This is a great place, this is a place that we want to bring our family to and be a part of, this is a place that we want to help take the next step. When we kind of looked at the whole package and everything that was going on, there was no doubt this is where we wanted to be.”
As the most relationships-oriented coach to enter the building since Chad Hall (at least based on public records), Nielsen began his answer to “What brought you here?” with a shining review of Doug Pederson. Though the Jaguars’ 2023 season ended sourly, let’s not forget that Pederson joins Andy Reid (3x), Bill Belichick (3x), Gray Kubiak, Bruce Arians, and Sean McVay as the only coaches to win a Super Bowl in the past decade. Jacksonville won its second division title since 1999 last year and was 17-11 (.607) in the regular season under Pederson until Trevor Lawrence and Christian Kirk were injured in Week 13 of 2023. I’d want to work with him, too.
Impressions on the Jaguars’ current roster
“I think that we’re talented, we’ve got a talented group. We’ve got some really good players and that- that was exciting and attracted us about the job here. But look, talent only gets you so far, right. We’re really excited to get to work with these guys, they seem very eager.
[On Travon Walker:] “... Here’s kind of our philosophy with the players is, we’re going to put the player in a position that he can have success first, over the scheme. We’re going to evaluate everything that he does well. And then if he can rush inside, then we’ll put him inside, Gene. If he’s more of a better outside rusher, we’ll keep him outside. Yes, we’ve evaluated those things, but 10 snaps is not enough to say, yes he can do that or he can’t do that. We’ll identify that once we get to OTAs and then camp… the process is never-ending. We’ll put our guys in the best positions for them to have success and then ultimately we will have success on defense and as a team.
[On the offense:] “... We’ll start with the quarterback, right. I mean, guy’s a really good football player. Big, athletic, he can make all the throws, he runs well. Physical offensive line. Skill in the receiver position, tight end runs well. Heck of a back now, couple of backs. When you put it all together, like as we were looking, that’s one of the pieces in why we wanted to come down here and be a part of this. They’ve got some talent over there and some really good players.”
[On Josh Allen:] “... A lot of production, right. Very important. When you got a guy like that, you want him back, and think that’s going to work out. Would be really excited if that works out. Really excited to work with him, heard nothing but great things, talked to Josh, and he’s been fantastic. That’ll get worked out and we’ll get him back and get him going and hopefully get him to improve. That’s the ultimate goal, right? Just take one- if we can just get that much better next year, really what does that look like? That’s pretty exciting, right, and that’s kind of what we want to work towards.”
It seems that Nielsen and his staff will experiment with Travon Walker as an interior rusher throughout the offseason. Maybe he’ll line up inside more often next year, but even if an increase does occur, I wouldn’t expect him to spend even 10% of his snaps there. At the end of the day, the pairing of Walker and Josh Allen (contract situation pending) with Nielsen and Bill Shuey (who stayed on staff as outside linebackers coach) is among the top reasons to get excited about Jacksonville’s 2024 defense. Walker and Allen, who led all edge duos in sacks last year (27.5), need more help around them- but their own ceilings are also untapped.
Scheme talk
“Well we like to- as one of our coaches would like to say, ‘nothing cheap and nothing deep.’ When you’re pressed, you take away the quick game, and we like to play shell to take away the deep throws. It may look man, man-ish at times, but sometimes there’s some press bail and some nuances in the coverage of that, it actually is zone with tighter coverage outside … we’re going to be mixing and matching, we play a lot of different coverages.
[On third down principles] “...Yeah, rush and coverage. I mean really, rush and coverage. We have to be multiple. The first thing we gotta do is affect the quarterback in that, we can’t allow the ball to come out of his hand quickly, becasue then the rush doesn’t get there. If the coverage has holes in it or give an easy throw, then it doesn’t matter who we’ve got coming off the edge. And we’ve got a couple of good edge guys here.
“We have to get the quarterback to hold it, the disguise is big, we’ve got multiple packages on third downs so we change week to week or maybe we don’t, so keep them guessing. Really big early in the game, is we try to go out there and they’re trying to identify what we’re doing on third down, and then go from there. Not, ‘Hey, we’re going to be in this look’ and every single time ‘we’re going to be able to make this throw.’ We’ve got to be multiple and keep changing. They’re just too good, on offense, the quarterbacks are too good, offensive coordinators, there’s so many guys over there that can identify. That’s why we’ve got to keep it multiple and keep changing up the looks.”
There was widespread discussion before and after Trent Baalke’s end-of-season presser about the type of defense Nielsen would bring to town. On the day of his hiring, Next Gen Stats posted a graphic highlighting Atlanta’s heavy press-man coverage tendencies from last season, which Baalke seemed to shoot down during his availability. Nielsen somewhat cleared the air by focusing on the word ‘press’, which fits the ATTACK and AGGRESSIVE theme, over ‘man’. But as Tony Romo mentioned during the Super Bowl LVIII broadcast, you have to be able to play man coverage against the league’s best quarterbacks. It’s similar to the ability to run the ball on offense; there are times in each game, but especially important ones, when you need your players to win their respective matchups even though everyone knows what’s coming. It remains to be seen if the right personnel for Nielsen’s scheme is already present, but the Xs and Os are in good hands in Jacksonville.
Full defensive staff will be announced soon
[Jaguars PR:] “About this week… coach is gonna put that out in time. They’re getting close.”
[Nielsen:] “We have the pieces in place, it’ll be announced here soon. We’ll say this, excited about the guys- worked with some of them, haven’t worked with others, coached a few, and so it’s just a great group of guys that I’ve been very close to. First and foremost, good men. Secondly, really good teachers, teachers of the game. When you put those two things together... they’re eager and excited. We see a lot of similarities.
“... [Teaching is] very important. First of all, it’s fundamentals and technique, and then scheme, and then putting it together. We wanted men that are very talented in both aspects and bringing it together. And also part of that is the relationship part. Players got to trust in what we’re saying and teaching and coaching. A lot of these guys have background of that, so I think when our players come in, they’ll be like, ‘This guy has done it, and this is the system in how we go about teaching things.’ I think they’re really going to like that, with all of the coaches in the room.
“I personally am very excited about the group of men that we’re working with, and getting them with our players and starting this thing. The best time is on the grass with the players, you can only be so excited. I’d go out there right now if I could. But really excited about that process and can’t wait for that to get going.”
This should be music to Jaguars fans’ ears after decades of wondering, “Were the wrong players brought it or were they just not developed?” Nielsen’s introductory press conference was admittedly filled with coachspeak, but it’s at least backed up by accounts from players and good stuff on film. What was generally said about Nielsen before Thursday was established at Miller Electric Center: the new defensive coordinator has the goods.
