JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jaguars accomplished something that hasn’t been done around here in a long time: they won a home playoff game.
Over 69,000 fans in EverBank witnessed a huge win as the home team beat the Buffalo Bills 10-3. We now travel to play Pittsburgh with an opportunity to advance to the AFC Championship game.
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All would agree this was a good matchup for us in the Wildcard round of the playoffs. The Bills were not expected to score much against our dominant defense. And that's exactly what happened. The Bills scored only thee points as the defense continued to play at a high level. LeSean McCoy was held to 75 years but didn’t find the end zone. Tyrod Taylor threw for only 134 yards with an INT.
This game simply went as expected on the defensive side of the ball. The other side of the ball was a different story. The offense struggled to put drives together and only scored 10. Third down was the story as Bortles had a difficult time keeping his team on the field, converting only two of 12 third-down attempts.
Clearly this wasn’t our quarterback's best day. He threw for only 87 yards and lat times looked like the 2016 version of Blake Bortles. His 87 yards passing were surpassed by his 88 yards rushing. That's not exactly the formula you are looking for in the playoffs, but we’ll take it.
Blake did manage to put together a brilliant drive in the third quarter that put the Jaguars up for good.
The key going forward for our quarterback is consistency. The first playoff game for any QB is always unnerving. He’ll need to be much better next week.
While its easy to look at what went wrong, now is not the time. Its time to celebrate! There will
be plenty to criticize leading up to next week.
Let's not forget that Blake Bortles did enough to win. He is 1-0 in the playoffs and did make some big plays with his legs. The key in the playoffs is to not turn the ball over and he did not. I'm confident he will be better. The whole team will have to be better.
The Steelers are a better team than when the Jaguars faced them early in the season. And for all the talk about Ben Roethlisberger wanting another shot at us, I promise you, he would much rather play somebody else.
Congrats to the Jaguars and congrats to our fans. Its been a long time since we’ve been in
this position. EverbBank was unbelievable Sunday.
Go Jaguars! Beat the Steelers!