Jacksonville is bringing back head coach Doug Marrone, but it will have a new offensive coordinator. John DeFilippo won’t be back for the 2020 season. This should have a big impact on Leonard Fournette.
In DeFilippo’s offense, Fournette was used extensively as a pass catcher. Way more than I was expecting (given that it’s not a strong part of Fournette’s game). He was one of only four backs with at least 100 targets in 2019.
Fournette had more passes thrown his way, in fact, than Alvin Kamara, James White, LeVeon Bell, Dalvin Cook and Saquon Barkley. I didn’t see that coming.
| RUNNING BACKS WITH 50 TARGETS | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Tgt | Rec | Yds | Avg | TD |
| Christian McCaffrey, Car. | 142 | 116 | 1,005 | 8.7 | 4 |
| Austin Ekeler, LAC | 108 | 92 | 993 | 10.8 | 8 |
| Tarik Cohen, Chi. | 104 | 79 | 456 | 5.8 | 3 |
| Leonard Fournette, Jac. | 100 | 76 | 522 | 6.9 | 0 |
| Alvin Kamara, N.O. | 97 | 81 | 533 | 6.6 | 1 |
| James White, N.E. | 95 | 72 | 645 | 9.0 | 5 |
| LeVeon Bell, NYJ | 78 | 66 | 461 | 7.0 | 1 |
| Saquon Barkley, NYG | 73 | 52 | 438 | 8.4 | 2 |
| Ezekiel Elliott, Dall. | 71 | 54 | 420 | 7.8 | 2 |
| Devonta Freeman, Atl. | 70 | 59 | 410 | 6.9 | 4 |
| Aaron Jones, G.B. | 68 | 49 | 474 | 9.7 | 3 |
| Kenyan Drake, Mia.-Ari. | 68 | 50 | 345 | 6.9 | 0 |
| Miles Sanders, Phi. | 63 | 50 | 509 | 10.2 | 3 |
| Dalvin Cook, Min. | 63 | 53 | 519 | 9.8 | 0 |
| Duke Johnson, Hou. | 62 | 44 | 410 | 9.3 | 3 |
| Chris Thompson, Was. | 58 | 42 | 378 | 9.0 | 0 |
| Nyheim Hines, Ind. | 58 | 44 | 320 | 7.3 | 0 |
| Jaylen Samuels, Pit. | 57 | 47 | 305 | 6.5 | 1 |
| Melvin Gordon, LAC | 55 | 42 | 296 | 7.0 | 1 |
| Royce Freeman, Den. | 50 | 43 | 256 | 6.0 | 1 |
I expect that Fournette’s role will change dramatically in 2020. Most likely they’ll make more of an effort to work in another running back, with that second guy probably doing more of the work in obvious passing situations. I would think Fournette also would be more effective if spelled more. As a big, power runner, he’s not really suited to be on the field for all three downs – he’s not a cardio guy.
But it’s early. Let’s see who replaces DeFilippo. There’s an article at Sports Illustrated where they lob out three former head coaches (Jay Gruden, Jim Caldwell and Jason Garrett), as well as Jon Kitna and Todd Monken.
—Ian Allan