JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Style points are irrelevant in the playoffs. Ugly, horrid, and dreadful are a couple of adjectives that could be used to describe the Jacksonville Jaguars offense on Sunday. It was far from a work of art but quarterback Blake Bortles and the offense did just enough to beat the Buffalo Bills 10-3.
In the first half Bortles had more rushing yards (35) than passing yards (33). The fact the Jaguars were able to go into the locker room with a 3-3 tie was a minor miracle. During the first 30 minutes, Buffalo dominated every offensive statistic.
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With the Jaguars struggling to find a rhythm in the passing game, Bortles used his legs to get the offense going. A pair of scrambles late in the first half led to a 44-yard Josh Lambo field goal.
In the second half when Bortles didn’t see an open receiver he didn’t hesitate to take off and run.
“He’s an athlete, that’s what it tells me,” said Jaguars left tackle Cam Robinson about Bortles’ effectiveness running the ball. “He’s going to go out there and do whatever it takes for us to win. That’s all you can ask from a quarterback is to go out there and lay it on the line every time and he does a great job of doing that every week.”
Bortles finished with a career-high 88 rushing yards compared to only 87 passing yards.
"That’s usually not ideal for a quarterback but it is what it is," said Bortles. "I said earlier I kind of felt like last week I didn’t run a whole lot. I don’t think I ran at all so it felt like we lost and got beat with emptying all our bullets, so I wanted to make sure that whatever happened today, if we were going to get beat or if something bad was going to happen, it was going to be with us going down swinging, using every option that we could."
Bortles joined Steve McNair as the only other QB to win a playoff game with fewer than 100 passing yards on 20+ attempts. In 1999 McNair led the Tennessee Titans to a Wild Card Game against the Bills. Prior to Sunday that was the Buffalo's last playoff game.