The Jacksonville Jaguars are changing things up with the hiring of Ryan Nielsen, and the new DC has a top priority for the revamped defense: re-signing Josh Allen. With Allen set to hit free agency, Nielsen wants to make sure one of the top pass rushers in the NFL is back in a Jaguars uniform.
“When you’ve got a guy like that, you want him back and think that’s going to work out. I’d be really excited if that works out,” Nielsen said, via a Jaguars transcript. “Really excited to work with him, heard nothing but great things. I talked to Josh and he’s been fantastic.
“That’ll get worked out, get him back and get him going, hopefully get him to improve. That’s the ultimate goal, if we can just get that much better next year, what does that look like? That’s pretty exciting. That’s what we want to work towards.”
The Jaguars appear to have every intent on keeping Allen, who is in line for a hefty raise. Allen finished with a franchise-record 17.5 sacks, with 66 tackles and 33 quarterback hits. Allen also had 90 pressures and a pressure rate of 18.3%. There’s a reason why he’s one of the top defensive players expected to hit the open market this offseason.
Nielsen had an aggressive defense that got after the quarterback with the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints. That will certainly benefit Allen in Jacksonville, another reason for the Jaguars to re-sign him.
“We want to be an attacking and aggressive style of defense that runs to the ball, that goes and hunts the ball, just put the pressure
on the offense,” Nielsen said. “That’s what we feel like we could bring, that’s just a style that we want to play.
“We just want to do our job and get the ball back to them [Trevor Lawrence and the offense] as many times as possible. When we do that, we’ll win a lot of games.
“Really, just keep giving the ball back to the offense in good field positions and it will be good in the end.”
