JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The good news: The Jaguars played better than they have for most of the season in Sunday’s 24-20 loss to the Packers. There were signs of life on defense. Jake Luton didn’t play bad football. James Robinson ran hard again.
And now ...
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The bad news: The Packers played shaky football and gave the Jaguars every opportunity to win a game and they still couldn’t win.
So, a bad day for the Packers still meant a win for Green Bay. And a relatively good day for the Jaguars — by Jaguars standards, anyway — tells you where things are. Good teams can survive a bad outing, much like the Packers did Sunday. Bad teams just can’t find a way to get it done. That’s where the Jaguars are at this point.
Jacksonville is 1-8 and bound to be picking very high in next year’s draft.
There were a lot of good things that happened on Sunday for the Jaguars. The defense had a couple of turnovers that they converted to points. They had excellent work on special teams. Keelan Cole had a monstrous 91-yard punt return for a touchdown. There was progress, even if it doesn’t show up in the win column.
But the downer is that even on a very good day overall for the Jaguars, it still wasn’t enough to beat a team having one of its worst days in quite awhile. There were a lot of good things on Sunday. It just didn’t turn into a win. That’s pretty much in line with how this season has gone.
Luton played better in the second half of the game, but I think we know what we’ve got in him at this point. I thought he was better last week against the Texans, but he looked like what you’d expect from a rookie playing in just his second game.
We didn’t see the progression from week to week that you’d hope to see. If Gardner Minshew was healthy, it’s probably a 50-50 tossup on who you play. I don’t think it’s a situation now where you put veteran Mike Glennon in there. See what you’ve got with the young guys. I hope that’s what Doug Marrone does.
At this point, continue to get the younger players reps and improve them for the future. Take the positives from games like today and appreciate them.