Should Justin Durant, Reggie Nelson, and Rashean Mathis play on Sunday, the Defense should have a significant improvement over last week. Durant brings a level of intensity and speed to our linebackers that we lacked against Houston. Replacing Rashean Mathis with Will James has a very obvious effect.

On the Offensive Line, Chris Naeole should return to the team, giving us a nearly identical line to what we had last season (at times), as Brad Meester still isn’t ready to return after his bicep injury.

Jerry Porter is someone to watch for on the Injury Reports, if he’s got nagging hamstring issues and misses practice, there might be something there to watch out for.

While the “stats” don’t show it, the Jaguars are still a hard hitting, smash mouth team, albeit one that had two quality, albeit unknown guards go down with injury and an up and coming left tackle gunned down, all in the first week of the regular season.

That ought to explain why it’s taking a little time to get the running game going.

On defense, yes, this isn’t the 2006 Jaguars. We’re still trying to come together under the new coordinator, as well as rely on two rookies (Harvey and Groves) to step up as quickly as possible. Once the pass-rush clicks, and I’ve seen enough of Harvey to know that it will happen sooner rather than later, you’ll see the Jaguars look like the team of recent memory.

Credit where Credit’s due, the Steelers were the first team to figure out how to shut down the Jaguars, or at least take away the running game and give the ball to Garrard. While it didn’t produce a win for ya’ll in the playoffs, the Jaguars haven’t had a good running game since that game last January.

He’s being used alot more in the passing game this season too. He’s our play-maker and We’ll get him the ball.

-Collin
Big Cat Country Writer

Your lines are beat-up, your backs are beat-up, and your QB is beat-up. Same as the playoff game.

Our WR’s still suck, our line is hurt again (we lost Naeole last season before this game), and we both need this win badly. Same as the playoff game.

Low scoring and violent… that’s my prediction.

-Collin

From big cat country:

“Two Pittsburgh players are done for the year now, their 1st round pick Mendenhall, and their stalwart RG Kendall Simmons. Simmons is a bigger loss; he is too good to be replaced, thus a drop-off in run and pass blocking is inevitable for the Steeler offensive line. Hopefully we’ll blitz a little less.”

“They are battered and their O-line just lost the equivalent of our Vince Manuwai in Kendall Simmons. He was their right guard and was stout against the pass rush and could over power all but the best. They are hurting badly.”

I know not everyone can know our O-line as well as we do, but that is just way off.

Groves is a “Pass Rush Specialist” as of right now. He only comes on the field on 2nd and 3rd and long situations. Give him a year or two and he’ll grow into a terror. With Derrick Harvey, I believe he is the same as Mario Williams. He just needs to adjust to the NFL for abit and realize his potential. If he can do that, I firmly believe the Jags have a 15 sack a year DE on their hands.

STEELERS COY ABOUT LINE PLANS
Posted by Mike Florio on October 3, 2008, 10:38 a.m.

Rookie Rashard Mendenhall’s season-ending injury drew the most attention after Monday night’s overtime win against the Ravens. But guard Kendall Simmons’ season-ending injury could cause even more problems for the team.

Coach Mike Tomlin isn’t talking much about who will take Simmons place. "I really don’t have to [until] Sunday night," Tomlin said Thursday.

Second-year backup center Darnell Stapleton currently has the edge over reserve tackle Trai Essex.

"Right now, Darnell is getting more snaps than Trai and has a more recent history," Tomlin said. "Trai has been concentrating quite a bit on being the swing tackle. We haven’t made a final decision."

Sean Mahan was traded before the season, in the wake of losing the starting center job to newcomer Justin Hartwig. But for the trade, Mahan would likely be the replacement for Simmons.

The Steelers are not considering moving right tackle Willie Colon to guard and using Max Starks at tackle. And that’s a shame, given that Starks is getting paid $6.895 million to ride the pine. In our view, the Steelers’ decision to slap the transition tag on Starks, while letting Alan Faneca walk away for no compensation, was one of the worst maneuvers in the history of the current free agency system.

Last year and this year we’re very susceptible to short passes, which has to do with scheme and methodology. The D is pretty concentrated on stopping the run and long passes and in doing so they tend to give up lots of 5-10s, and a frustratingly large amount on 3rd downs. This is annoying to watch as a fan. I don’t know anything about giving up “huge chunks” though.

Our starting #2 CB has been out and our #3 has stepped up, played lights out, and decided to catch the other teams ball. The jags might be able to get a passing game going, but they’ll have to do it against the #4 (by footballoutsiders) / #3 (by yardage) pass defenses. It’s actually more stout than our run D, which is being affected by our old and injury-prone D-line.

This year the Jags have been very susceptible to the pass. We managed to buy Matt Schaub another week of starting for the Texans when he doubled his season yardage numbers against us last week.

The Jacksonville Jaguars will be without half their starting secondary against Pittsburgh on Sunday night. Safety Reggie Nelson (knee) and cornerback Drayton Florence (groin) will miss the game, coach Jack Del Rio said Friday. Nelson bruised a knee two weeks ago at Indianapolis when he collided with teammate Brian Williams and sat out last week’s game against Houston.

hereismyboy