In Week 12, the Jacksonville Jaguars will once again face one of their most fearsome opponents of the 2025 season: seasoned veteran and backup quarterback. After a week five injury to starting quarterback Kyler Murray ultimately landed him on the injured list, Arizona Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett stepped into the starting role with a 66.7 percent completion rate, compiling 11 touchdowns and just three turnovers over a five-game stretch. Meanwhile, the Jaguars are coming off a dominant performance up front, sacking Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert three times while pressuring him on half of his 25 dropbacks.
With Herbert’s propensity to hold the ball for longer periods, looking for an explosive play down the field, the Jaguars’ front seven capitalized on those opportunities, with 14 of their 21 Week 11 pressures coming more than 3 seconds from the snap.
Throughout the year, the defense has been inclined to send extra blitz players more frequently due to their recent struggles tackling the quarterback.
And the blitz has been fruitful for the Jaguars in pressuring opposing quarterbacks, as they are currently fourth in the NFL in average time to pressure when blitzing at 2.28 seconds. However, they rank 11th in the league (2.75 seconds) when pressuring just the four players. When facing veteran quarterbacks who consistently get the ball out quickly (2.3 – 2.7 seconds), the team has regularly struggled, something Liam Coen mentioned a week ago, prior to the team’s Week 10 matchup.
“Yeah, the bottom line is we have to affect the quarterback better. And whether it’s scheme or whether it’s people, we have to affect. Now look, I’ll say this of all the downs the other day, I think it was like 88 percent; I don’t know what crazy percentage of the time the ball was coming out in about two-odd (seconds). They were running a lot of quick option routes, zone coverage, just like pick and dink, dink, dink, dink, dink, dink. So, finally It gets tough to get to the quarterback when it’s almost a quick play, but it’s not that intermediate pass that I think Vegas did a good job of attacking us that way.
Jacksonville’s defensive average time to throw of 2.56 seconds (sixth) feels dominant compared to Brissett’s average time to throw (which has slowly improved over the past two weeks):
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Week 6 (Indianapolis Colts): 3.29
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Week 7 (Green Bay Packers): 2.91
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Week 9 (Dallas Cowboys): 3.13
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Week 10 (Seattle Seahawks): 2.83
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Week 11 (San Francisco 49ers): 2.73
In Week 11, Brissett, in particular, had his best average throwing time of the 2025 season, at 2.73 seconds. Despite a whopping 57 dropbacks, Arizona tied a season-low four quarterback hits and allowed no sacks in the matchup. They might think it wise to continue this trend of getting the ball out quickly when facing a Jacksonville defense that has shown significant difficulty defending the quick play.
Brissett has a 90.4 passer rating, 63.7 completion rate, -5.2 EPA, 11 sacks allowed and a 3.00 throw time when facing four running backs. However, against the blitz, his play increases to a 126.8 passer rating, 77.8 completion rate, +10.5 EPA, 7 sacks allowed, and 2.86 time to throw.
Much like Week 11, against Justin Herbert of the Los Angeles Chargers, this game could shape up to favor another multi-sack game for Jacksonville, if they can find a way to get home with four in under three seconds. Unless Arizona comes in with a much faster passing operation during the week, this will likely determine the game. Can Jacksonville come home with just four? Will Campanile trust them from the start to win without having to add more players to the mix? Can the back end hold up long enough to force Brissett to feel uncomfortable in the pocket? We will know on Sunday.
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How many sacks, if any, do you predict for Jacksonville’s defense on Sunday, Duval? Let us know below in the comments.