JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – I sound repetitive many weeks.
The Jaguars play hard, show some fight, come up short. Repeat. Not on Sunday.
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In a season of misery, I can say that that performance against Baltimore was the worst of them all.
A 40-14 loss to the Ravens wasn’t as close as that score indicated. I think we all just witnessed the worst loss in a season filled with losses. Baltimore absolutely dominated the Jaguars on Sunday. I don’t think we expected a win.
Just an awful all-around performance.
Gardner Minshew never got going. If you look solely at his numbers (22 of 29 passing, 226 yards, two touchdowns), they look good. His quarterback rating is 120.8. But I never got a sense that Minshew was playing good at all. He was careless with the ball again, which led to a lost fumble. He was sacked five times, although not all of those fall on him.
Once Minshew was sacked for a safety, it was like the air went out of the team. It was downhill from there. To me, that was disappointing.
We’d seen so much in terms of positive steps in the last month and a half. While the Jaguars weren’t winning games, they were at least competitive mostly deep into the second half. They took the Vikings into overtime. The lost by two to the Browns. There was progress. And then a game like this happens and it throws a fresh set of scrutinizing eyes on just how much help this team needs to be competitive.
Don’t get me wrong. The Ravens are a good football team. But they aren’t as dominant as the Jaguars made them look on Sunday.
The lone bright spot remains running back James Robinson, but he’s seeing just how difficult it is to get the focus of the defense on a weekly basis. His production has dropped the last two games (67 yards against the Titans, 35 yards against the Ravens) because the Jaguars just don’t have a quarterback on the roster to take the pressure off of the running game.
Minshew, Jake Luton, Mike Glennon, it doesn’t matter. The right quarterback is not anywhere on the premises at TIAA Bank Field. The Jaguars might get a touchdown or two, but they’re not winning games with this current offensive lineup.