Josh Hines-Allen: Player Spotlight

This weeks player spotlight has to go to DE Josh Hines-Allen who lived in the Texans backfield yesterday. The stats aren't going to pop when you look at them but he was all over the Jaguars film. He finished the day with only two tackles, 0.5 sacks, and a pass deflection but it doesn't reflect how much of a menace he was all day.

On the 2nd Texans drive of the day JHA (Josh Hines-Allen) makes his presence felt early by driving the Texans RT almost into CJ Stroud's lap. The Texans are trying to run a long developing pass play and hit a deep crossing route. Hines-Allen applies the pressure and forces an early check down just barely missing Stroud's hand on the play. Early in Stroud's career he had a lot of success against the Jaguars with these long crossers and JHA basically shut the door on those for the rest of the day.

Another key play that won't show up in the stats but showed his impact came with just under 5 minutes left in the 2nd quarter. The Texans have the ball 2nd and 7 on their own side of the field with a chance to take the lead. The Texans attempt to motion a TE over to chip JHA. Hines-Allen blows past the TE, OT, and RB on the play and forces Stroud to flush out of the pocket early leading to a throw away. The only thing that stopped JHA from picking up a sack on the play was a missed hold by the TE. The Texans sent 3 players to block Hines-Allen and he beat every single one of them on the play. Just a ridiculous effort by the soon to be career leader in sacks for the Jaguars.

The play of the day though was the game winner for a Jaguars defense that absolutely dominated the Texans offense in almost every key moment of the game. The Texans have 3rd and 1 on the Jaguars 27 yard line with about 30 seconds left in the game, trailing 17-10. This is typically where a past Jaguars team would have blown the game but not this time. The Texans are trying to run Christian Kirk on a post from the slot. He's going to break open and have a shot except JHA kills the Texans LT on the play, makes it to Stroud just in time and deflects the pass. Jourdan Lewis absolutely tackles Kirk on the play and I'm not sure if he did that because he saw the deflection or if he was ok with taking the PI on the play to stop Kirk from beating him. Either way JHA's deflection makes it so the refs can't even make the call if they wanted to and leads to the game winning INT for a very feisty Jags team.

The Jaguars defense wasn't perfect on Sunday but they were damn close and they certainly did enough to beat Houston. Josh Hines-Allen was a major reason for that and is putting together another great season on the edge for Jacksonville. The sack numbers aren't there yet this season but with the amount of pressure he's putting on QB's so far this year eventually he'll start racking them up. His half sack on Sunday brings his career total to 53.5 which puts him just 1.5 sacks away from tying Tony Brackens as the career sack leader for the Jaguars franchise.

Honorable Mentions

CB Tyson Campbell: It was really hard not to pick Campbell for this segment because of how he responded to the worst performance of his career last week but I felt JHA was really the driving force of the defense all day. Campbell had a really impressive bounce back performance even while primarily matched up against Nico Collins. He played with a ton of physicality all day and when he did give up a catch he was right there to lay a big hit on the receiver. He also had a massive forced fumble against Nico Collins when the Texans had a chance to take the lead in the red zone on Houston's second to last drive. Really impressed with how battled all day. Getting this version of Tyson Campbell just takes Jacksonville's defense to another level.

DE Travon Walker: If he wasn't already last weeks Player Spotlight, it probably would've been a much tighter 3 man race for this prestigious award. Walker had himself another huge day in Jacksonville on Sunday. This was his second straight week with a sack and he's taken a ton of attention off of Hines-Allen so far this year and is making a case for being considered a top 10 edge rusher if he can keep up this pace. The Jaguars might want to get a deal done with this guy sooner rather than later. It won't be long before he's right up there with Hines-Allen on the Jaguars all time sack list.

CB Jourdan Lewis: Lewis is very quickly approaching "best FA addition in Jaguars history" territory after another awesome day for him. The read he made on his INT of Stroud is one of the best I've seen a Jaguars defender make maybe since Jalen Ramsey. The Jaguars are in man coverage and he has the underneath safety valve. The play is designed to hold Lewis underneath to open up a crossing route over the top of him. Instead he reads Stroud's eyes, floats under the crossing route, and comes up with an INT that Stroud just never saw coming. Here's Jourdan Lewis's stat line so far: 17 Tackles, 1 Fumble Recovery, 2 INTs, and 6 pass deflections. We're just 3 weeks into the season...