The stat of the week for the upcoming Miami Dolphins game at the Jacksonville Jaguars?
The Jaguars have allowed at least four sacks in eight consecutive games. That is the NFL's longest active consecutive game sack streak.
And that statistic obviously speaks to how the Jaguars led the NFL in sacks allowed last year with 71 and are off to a rousing start on the same category this season, allowing five sacks last week against the Carolina Panthers in a 20-9 loss.
In other words what I'm saying is the Jaguars' protection of their quarterback is putrid.
And that's good...for the Miami Dolphins, who didn't exactly get off to the fast start chasing quarterbacks everyone expected. The Dolphins defensive front, which players say they consider among the best in the NFL, last week collected one sack against Washington.
Rookie defensive tackle Jordan Phillips collected his first career sack. Meanwhile Cameron Wake, Ndamukong Suh and Olivier Vernon -- players with reputations for being able to chase the quarterback -- didn't get to the signal-caller.
“Each and every week you want to come into the game, you want to play better football, but the other team plays professional football too," Vernon said, obviously not realizing this rule excludes Jacksonville's terrible protection. "It’s not going to come easy, but on our side of the defense, we should’ve played better last week and we look forward to playing better this week.”
The Jaguars are seemingly perfect prey for a Miami defensive wanting a taste for quarterbacks.
The expectation (that word again) is the Dolphins should be able to do what eight teams have done the past eight games against the Jaguars -- which is make Blake Bortles or whomever is playing quarterback quite uncomfortable.
If it happens, consider it a launch point.
If the Dolphins, however, fail to mount consistent pressure against Bortles, that would suggest something is amiss because, again, everyone else seems to be able to do it.
It should be interesting to see.
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