Even though you said that these Jags are “far from an 1985-Bears or a 2000-Ravens type unit” I think even putting them in the same sentence is inappropriate. They’re good, yes. One of the top 3 defences this year probably. But I wouldn’t put them in the same class as the Broncos or Seahawks defenses of this decade - maybe around the top Texans teams.
Wait, why aren’t they in the same class as the Broncos? The 2015 Broncos (the Cam Newton sad face team) stacks up pretty similarly to the 2017 Jaguars statistically. In the regular season:
Points allowed by 2015 Broncos: 296
Points allowed by 2017 Jaguars: 268
Yards allowed by 2015 Broncos: 4,530
Yards allowed by 2017 Jaguars: 4,578
Sacks by 2015 Broncos: 52
Sacks by 2017 Jaguars: 55
DVOA of 2015 Broncos defense: 1st, -25.8%
DVOA of 2017 Jaguars defense: 1st, -16.1%
At this point we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. And I feel okay about our chances. But this is a good defense.