Calais Campbell is why the Jaguars defense made the leap from good to great

Before last weekend’s Wild Card games, I had already pretty much decided on Calais Campbell as my Hoss of the Year. He ended the 2017 regular season with 14.5 sacks, which tied him with DeMarcus Lawrence for the second-highest sack output in the league behind Chandler Jones (17). Those 14.5 sacks in his 10th season were also five and a half more sacks than Campbell’s previous career single-season high of nine and set a new franchise record for the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Campbell had a fantastic season, but Campbell has been so much more than just a pass rusher this year.

As the starting defensive end who normally lines up to the opposing offense’s run strength, Campbell had a huge impact on the Jaguars run defense as well because tight ends generally just couldn’t handle him one-on-one. Even when those tight ends got help from the offensive tackle on double teams, that wouldn’t always suffice either to keep Campbell from having an impact on running plays.

It didn’t always show up in the stat sheet, but Campbell routinely destroyed blocking schemes all by his damn self. So many times he either created a pile or forced a double team to stay on him instead of going up on the second level. That usually allowed one of his teammates to actually make the tackle.

That’s just one of the many ways he helped to make the guys around him better this year.

His versatility was something that stood out this season. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that Campbell could line up anywhere, since that’s kind of what he did for all those years in Arizona’s 3-4 defense. What was a little surprising was just how good he was pretty much everywhere he lined up. On any given play you might see Campbell anywhere from a one technique in the A gap as a nose tackle to a wide nine as an edge rusher.

And he made plays from almost all of those spots.

I mean that literally.

Campbell had at least one sack from left edge rusher, left one technique, right one technique, right three technique, and right edge rusher. It was just a quirk of fate that he didn’t have a sack from left three technique, but he did have some pressures from there.

He made plenty of tackles from all of those spots, too.

That meant, try as they might, most opposing offenses had a helluva time trying to game plan for him because they could never know for sure where he would be on any given play. He was obviously partial to lining up as the right three technique, as that is where he got the overwhelming majority of his sacks. But he brought the funk no matter where he lined up!

Just think about that for a moment. This season the Jaguars had a guy who was hell against the run as a defensive end, but also just as impactful as an interior pass rusher. Oh, and did I mention he busts his ass on every friggin play?

Can you say total package?

So yeah, his numbers were very good this year, but they honestly don’t do his film justice. There were so many impressive plays that Campbell made this year that simply didn’t make it onto the official stat sheet. To really see the impact he has had on that defense and that team, you simply have to watch his film.

A perfectly designed run play blown to hell by Campbell

As I was watching the Jacksonville-Buffalo game on Sunday, Campbell kept showing up all game long. Once again, some of his very best plays were the kind that you wouldn’t even be aware of unless you actually watched the game.

His performance against the Bills was like the perfect microcosm of why he’s my choice for Hoss of the Year this season. Therefore, I decided to point out and break down a few of his big plays from Sunday as representatives of the kinds of plays he has made all year to earn this award.

I’m going to start with one of my favorite plays of his from this last game. The Bills had a second-and-9 at their own 35-yard line with 9:39 left in the first quarter and the score 0-0.

Plot twist: The Bills had backup offensive lineman Ryan Groy in the game as a tight end to help them in the run game. Buffalo also had backup tight end Nick O’Leary in as a wing, and they both lined up outside of right tackle Jordan Mills.

The Jaguars were lined up in an Eagle (under) front with Abry Jones as a one technique on the left, Campbell at left defensive end in a five technique on the outside shade of Mills’ right shoulder, and Myles Jack lined up on the line and outside of O’Leary.

The Bills wanted to run a belly with Shady McCoy where they double teamed Campbell with Mills and Groy up to middle linebacker Paul Posluszny, while O’Leary blocked out on Jack. That would’ve left cornerback A.J. Bouye one-on-one with Shady, in space, with McCoy having a full head of steam and room to make him miss. Many a defensive player, including some damn good ones, have their ankles broken in similar scenarios so the blocking scheme made a lot of sense.

What the Bills didn’t count on was Campbell absolutely obliterating that attempted double team by Mills and Groy.

First, Campbell did a quick arm over on Mills and turned his hip toward his man to get skinny so that Mills didn’t have much surface to hit. Mills damn near whiffed on the block, and Groy was no match for Campbell one-on-one. Campbell drove Groy 2 yards into the backfield, directly in McCoy’s path. He basically dumped Groy on his back and right into McCoy, which forced Shady to try to hop over the pile that had suddenly formed in front of him. By the time McCoy’s feet returned to the ground, Bouye had already closed on him. McCoy tried to bounce it outside, but he just didn’t have anywhere to run.

Bouye got credited with a tackle for a 1-yard loss on that play, but Campbell’s destruction of Groy had a huge hand in Bouye making it in the first place.

Don’t even try to cut off Campbell.

Here is another fun play to watch on film.

The Bills had second-and-7 from their own 44-yard line with 54 seconds to go in the first quarter.

Once again they had an extra offensive lineman in at tight end, only this time it was backup left tackle Seantrel Henderson, lined up outside of left tackle Dion Dawkins. They also had Pat DiMarco in the game so they could run a fullback lead with McCoy.

The Jags countered again with an Eagle (under) front, but this time Jones, Campbell, and Jack were on the right side of the line in the same alignments. McCoy followed DiMarco toward Mills initially, but the blocking scheme called for Dawkins and Henderson try to scoop block Campbell with Dawkins cutting Campbell off and Henderson going up to safety Barry Church. That would have, in theory, created a nice cutback lane for Shady that might’ve even gotten him a free run all the way up to the deep safety.

Hell of an idea ... but for that part about trying to cut Campbell off.

Oh, Dawkins tried to cut him off.

But Campbell just didn’t feel like letting Dawkins block him on that play. Instead Campbell grabbed a hold of Dawkins and slung him inside like a rag doll, which effectively shut off that proposed cutback lane. For good measure Campbell finished off the pancake on Dawkins, falling on top of him and forcing McCoy to once again try to hurdle a pile of Campbell’s making. This time that hurdle gave Jack just enough time to hawk McCoy down from his alignment outside and tackle him for a 5-yard gain.

Now, maybe that doesn’t seem like all that of an impressive play, but ask yourself this question: What do you think would have happened had McCoy been able to cut back in the B gap and get up to the deep safety that just so happened to be Bouye for some odd reason?

I like Bouye a lot, but it might’ve gotten ugly.

Oh, and then there’s the whole tossing a 6’4, 320-pound professional athlete to the ground like a blocking dummy.

He doesn’t even get an assist on that play, but Campbell damn sure helped to make it.

Good things come to those who hustle!

Remember earlier when I referenced Campbell busting his ass all the time? I don’t know if anybody has ever used the word “relentless” to describe him as a player, but if you looked up the word in the dictionary, it might well have his picture beside it.

You rarely, if ever see him just standing around, looking or waiting for someone else to make the play. Campbell is always on the go, whether it’s a short run or a long pass. That was the kind of standard we had in Tampa back when I played. I love that shit, and as I always say, good things come to those who hustle.

Take, for instance, the very next play in the game on Sunday.

It’s third-and-2 and this time Campbell is lined up as a one technique on the right side. Buffalo decides to try to run a bootleg with Tyrod Taylor in the opposite direction, to their right.

Initially, Bills center Eric Wood gave Campbell a reach block look, which forced Campbell even further away from the actual bootleg. Then, when Campbell recognized it was a bootleg, he came inside of Wood’s block with a quick arm over. Right guard Vlad Ducasse was right there waiting on him, though, and he walled off Campbell upfield so he would have to take the longest route possible to try to catch up to Taylor.

At this point Campbell was off balance, not even going in the right direction. Taylor was steady putting more distance between the two of them. It would have been very easy for Campbell to shut it down and assume someone else would make the play.

Trust me, I see it from other guys folks call “relentless” every week.

But Campbell just ain’t built like that.

Instead he did like he always does: He turned, put his head down, and hauled ass.

And wouldn’t you know it, Dante Fowler Jr. eventually worked back out to contain Taylor and force him to pull up before he made it all the way to the sideline.

You can see on the all 22 that if Taylor had time to set his feet and throw the football at the end of this play, he had Deonte Thompson working away from double coverage for what could have been a pretty easy throw for a first down.

But he didn’t have time to set his feet because Campbell had run all the way from outside the college hashes on the right to damn near the numbers on the left and ultimately ended up being the one to force Taylor to throw the ball away.

Just calling that a hurry or a pressure doesn’t seem like quite enough when you think about all the effort it took for Campbell to get from point A to point B, but again, this is what I’ve seen from him on a weekly basis this season.

This was Campbell’s most important play from last Sunday’s win.

OK, so this next one may not have been my favorite play of Campbell’s from Sunday, but it was likely the most important play he made all day.

The score is still 0-0 with 3:37 left in the first half and the Bills all the way at the Jags’ 4-yard line facing third-and-2. The Bills lined up with an empty backfield set. The Jaguars lined up in press man-to-man across the board, with four defensive linemen and the two safeties at linebacker depth in the middle.

The Bills again had a good idea, in theory.

They were going to run a quarterback draw after spreading the Jaguars out, knowing that Jacksonville’s defensive linemen, in particular Yannick Ngakoue, like to get up the field vs. a pass set by the offensive line. They were running it right at Ngakoue, in fact.

This time Campbell was lined up at left defensive end, Marcell Dareus was the left three technique, Jones was lined up in a 2i on left guard Richie Incognito, and Ngakoue was the right defensive end.

Dawkins was successful in getting Ngakoue to go upfield, and Wood and Incognito also had a decent scoop block on Jones going, while Ducasse did a good job of walling off Dareus inside.

If Mills could have found a way to keep Campbell from beating him inside, Taylor would have been, at worst, one-on-one in space with Jack, who was going to have to try to beat Incognito’s block. Taylor only needed 2 yards for a first down (almost a given) or 4 yards for the touchdown.

Of course, if ifs were fifths, we’d all be fucked up.

It looks like Campbell and Dareus may have been trying to run an EX game, but Campbell ran right through Mills’ inside shoulder with a ferocious rip from Campbell’s outside arm. He was not going to let Mills keep him from getting to Taylor. Campbell dove with his hand outstretched to the fullest and just managed to get Taylor’s shoe.

That was just enough to get Taylor off balance. He ended up falling after a gain of just 1 yard.

After a dumbass offsides penalty on the field goal attempt gave the Bills a first down that they subsequently squandered with an offensive pass interference on Kelvin Benjamin, Buffalo ended up kicking a field goal anyway.

It might be easy to forget Campbell’s tackle for a 1-yard gain, but if he doesn’t fight through Mills to swipe Taylor’s foot there, how differently might the rest of the game have gone if the Bills went into halftime with a 7-3 lead, rather than just being tied 3-3?

On paper it was “just” a tackle for a 1-yard gain, however.

Campbell saves the day for DUVAL.

I could point out another hustle play early in the third quarter where Campbell ran down McCoy from behind to make a tackle for a 5-yard gain after McCoy caught a check down.

Or, I could talk about how near the end of the third quarter he beat Dawkins cleanly with a long arm to a rip move. He ended up missing the sack, but he still forced Taylor to scramble to his left and throw the ball away.

Those plays exemplify what I’ve seen from Campbell all season. But this is already running long, and there was one play that I just had to include in this column. It was the one Campbell made right at the end to help seal the win for Jacksonville.

Taylor got knocked out of the game with 1:43 left in the fourth quarter. Nathan Peterman came onto the field in relief. On his very first play, Peterman actually escaped out of Campbell’s clutches to scramble for 4 yards on fourth-and-3, after Campbell beat Incognito cleanly with an inside move.

On his second play of the game, Peterman completed a pass to Thompson for 14 yards that got the Bills all the way down to the Jacksonville 38-yard line. With the Jaguars ahead 10-3, it was starting to look like Buffalo had a legit shot to tie the game even with Peterman in the game.

Even #DUUUUUVVAAAALLLL’s most diehard fans had to have been a little puckered at that point.

Unfortunately for the Bills, Campbell decided to put his cape on one more time.

This time Campbell was lined up as the right three technique and Malik Jackson was lined up as the left three technique. On the snap, they ran a TOM game where Campbell was the penetrator and Jackson was the looper. Jackson kind of stutter stepped inside into the A gap to get Ducasse and Wood’s attention. At the same time Campbell stepped inside and ripped with his outside arm to get inside of Incognito. Once Wood recognized that Jackson wasn’t actually coming through that A gap, he tried to redirect back left to try to pick up Campbell, but it was already too late.

Campbell went face mask-to-face mask with Wood and lowered the boom on his ass. With Jackson looping around, that forced Incognito to try to pick him up. Combined with Wood getting blasted, it had a parting the Red Sea effect for Campbell. He had a clean run at Peterman.

This time he didn’t let Peterman get away.

In desperation, Peterman, as he was going down, tried to throw the ball away, but it didn’t reach the line of scrimmage, he was still in the pocket and there wasn’t an eligible receiver in the vicinity. It didn’t go down as a sack, but Campbell forced Peterman into that intentional grounding call. It not only meant a loss of down and a loss of 10 yards, but it also necessitated a 10-second runoff because of when it occurred.

Oh, and then Peterman threw an interception on the next play.

Game over.

With Chandler Jones winning the sack title by 2.5 sacks, some of you may have thought he would be a shoo-in for Hoss of the Year. Aaron Donald is another guy who had a fantastic year, and may have had your vote for Hoss of the Year. But for me no defensive front guy made more of an impact on their team and for their team than Calais Campbell did this year with the Jaguars.

I wasn’t sure about the decision to sign him initially because of his age and the fact that he had played in a 3-4 for most of his career. Campbell not only raised his own level of play this season, but it was obvious he helped the guys around him raise theirs, too. Such was the case yet again in Jacksonville’s first playoff victory since January 2008.

For his efforts this season and especially this past Sunday, Calais Campbell is both your Hoss of the Week for the Wild Card Weekend and your Hoss of the Year for the 2017 season.

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