Cat Scratch Reader
Welcome back to another season of the 5 Questions series where we needle our opposing bloggers with questions about their teams, trying to prove that they are held together with as much spit and duck tape as our favorite Carolina Panthers. If the wins pile up we will seek to be gracious with these audiences. As the losses pile up we will, true to our mascot, try to be increasingly catty and lure them into superstitious traps.
For this week, I spoke with Gus Logue over at Big Cat Country about the Jacksonville Jaguars. As it is Week 1, I remained polite and avoided such pressing questions as “Why would you root for Jacksonville?” and “How much longer before Everbank Stadium sinks into the swamp?”. In kind, Gus tried to revive a spirit of community between us as fans of fellow expansion teams and even wished us all luck. We also talked about Travis Hunter, Trevor Lawrence, and an encouragingly—for the Panthers—shaky offensive line that could help Carolina get off to a good start. Here’s more:
1. Let’s get the big question out of the way first, what are we expecting to see out of Travis Hunter this week?
I absolutely expect Hunter to play both sides of the ball on Sunday, but in terms of how much, your guess is as good as mine. Head coach Liam Coen said Monday that the team is “still working through” what his usage will look like because he’s been managing a minor shoulder injury for a couple of weeks now. Meanwhile, general manager James Gladstone said last week, “There’s a competitive advantage to not knowing what side of the ball he’s going to be deployed on fully. If that’s half, if that’s a mixture, all those sorts of things can vary from one week to the next. I think the fact that that exists is certainly a hand that we’ll keep close.”
I think Hunter is the team’s third option at both receiver and cornerback right now; Brian Thomas Jr. and Dyami Brown will play in most 2-receiver sets, while Tyson Campbell and Jourdan Lewis will play in most 2-cornerback situations. Hunter should be on the field in high-leverage and obvious pass situations for both sides of the ball, but beyond that, we’ll just have to wait and see.
2. The Jaguars defense was putrid last year, almost as bad as the Panthers some would say. What’s different in 2025?
The team hired a new defensive coordinator in Anthony Campanile — which is a positive in that Ryan Nielsen is no longer in the building. He made defensive linemen bulk up to a point where they lost effectiveness and his scheme was predictable as they come. The 2024 Jaguars ranked top-three in man coverage rate and press coverage rate, and bottom-three in blitz rate and stunt rate.
Jacksonville’s coaches did not put their players in a position to succeed last season. In terms of personnel, the safety room was pretty disastrous. The...
