Did Derrick Henry kill the Jacksonville Jaguars franchise?

Hitting the reset button

After that game, the Jaguars went just 2-4 in their remaining 6 games and Nick Foles was benched quickly the week after the loss to the Titans.

During the last two years, you can make a case that the Jaguars’ inability to stop Derrick Henry with any sort of consistency led to confusion and doubt in that franchise and the success the Titans offense had against Jacksonville made it very hard to justify paying their top players.

Jalen Ramsey and Calais Campbell have been traded and Yannick Ngakoue desperately wants out. Meanwhile, nearly all of the remaining defenders from the 2017 season have been released. This is a quote from today:

From the best defense in the NFL in 2017 to a team that has at least seven spots up for grabs. How does a team fall off like that without mass retirements or deals expiring? Not only that but what has to happen to make an entire franchise collapse like this? You could make the argument that it looks exactly like this TL;DR version:

1. Great year in 2017 is marred by a sweep from the Titans thanks in large part to the run game led by a young Derrick Henry.
2. Complacency leads to Bortles being brought back, but to combat the idea that teams need to run the ball on the Jaguars instead of dealing with their pass rushers, the Jags use their first pick on Taven Bryan and not Lamar Jackson.
3. Despite a mirage of hope early in 2019, all that money that they invested in Foles was a waste and Garnder Minshew isn’t the answer either and a despondent defense gets obliterated on national tv to effectively end the season.
4. Mass exodus of talent on defense and no clear vision on what to do next.