The Jacksonville Jaguars have spent countless seasons of late clawing at relevancy.
They found it in 2025, posting a 13-4 record to capture their third AFC South title and make their fifth trip to the playoffs this century.
That's all well and good, but pass rusher Josh Hines-Allen has no intentions of letting Jacksonville enter the new season with any feelings of contentment.
"It starts right now. It starts during OTAs," Hines-Allen said Thursday on The Insiders when asked how Jacksonville can avoid becoming another one-hit wonder. "We've got a packed house every day. Guys coming here ready to work, committed to the cause, and we've got a lot of competitors, a lot of guys that are going to come in and compete every single day. For me, that's been my whole career. I've always been a guy that's probably been in the shadows but came to work every single day to get better. Become a better complete person for myself, for my teammates.
"You see everybody that we brought in this year and the last, guys are just coming in and working every single day. We finished 13-4 last year. Obviously we were in the playoffs, we were the champs in our division, but that's not enough for us. We want more. But it's not going to happen overnight, and we know that as a team."
Stacking success has long been a problem for the Jags, whose last five playoff runs have all come nonconsecutively -- a far cry from the four made postseasons in their first five tries as an expansion team from 1995-1999.
Following that initial flood of success, things dried up. Jacksonville made it to the Wild Card Round during the 2005 season and the Divisional Round in the 2007 campaign before a nine-year postseason drought. An AFC Championship Game appearance during the 2017 season seemed to mark a turning of the corner, only for the Jags to post four straight losing seasons.
The 2022 division title again gave way to playoff-less campaigns, this time two, before Hines-Allen and Co. racked up 13 victories last season -- but a wildly successful year that exceeded all expectations still ended with a wild-card loss to the Buffalo Bills
Can the Jaguars finally maintain momentum from one season to the next?
Hines-Allen figures to play a pivotal role in their attempt. A two-time Pro Bowler, he's superb among pass rushers at defending the run and in 2025 led the team in sacks for the fifth time in his career. He also has reason to believe his best is yet to come.
Though he's collected a respectable eight sacks in each of the past two seasons, his most recent Pro Bowl campaign came in 2023, a 17.5-sack effort during his second year in then-defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell's system. A big proponent of familiarity breeding success, Hines-Allen foresees a similar leap in his second season under DC Anthony Campanile, who recently coached Jacksonville to its first top-10 ranking in points allowed since 2018.
"I think the sky's the limit for myself this year," Hines-Allen said. "Year 2 [in a new defensive system] I feel like is always going to be the biggest jump. Year 1 is really feeling it out. Obviously, you want to be the best player on the field at all times, but there's going to be a lot of situations where you don't know if you can make that decision. But going into Year 2 knowing I've got the trust of the staff, trust of the players to just go out there and be able to make more plays, just go out there and be a dog. They're allowing me to flourish in the scheme. (Defensive coordinator Anthony) Camp(anile) is doing a heck of a job on getting everybody schemed up, getting everybody open, having our secondary be a lot more sticky on the back end so we can have an opportunity to go rush.
"I'm excited about this team. I'm excited about my journey. I think when I had 17 (sacks), that was the second year in that system, so for me to have that thought process and that mindset going into Year 2, I feel like I'm a better player than I was a few years ago. I'm really looking forward to this year."
