The Jaguars remain a mark of consistency.
Another season of double-digit losses.
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Another blowout on the West Coast.
Another miserable offensive performance.
Another losing streak hitting its stride.
The Jaguars turned in another lethargic effort on Sunday, pummeled 37-7 by the Rams as their losing streak reached four games with no signs of slowing down.
Jacksonville’s offense remains a barely functional unit. It mustered just one offensive touchdown for the fifth time in six weeks and couldn’t sustain any sort of flow after a Carlos Hyde rushing score cut the deficit to 10-7 early in the second quarter.
The Rams (8-4) ended a three-game losing streak and delivered the Jaguars their worst loss under coach Urban Meyer.
“Yeah, we’re searching for answers right now. How do you find answers? You go to work, and we’re going to go back to work. I don’t mean to be redundant and coach-speak, but there’s nothing else I can tell you,” Meyer said. “Is it frustrating for everybody involved? Absolutely. Are we better than that? Absolutely are better than that. Do we have better players than that? Yes. Do we have better coaches than that? Yes. Now it’s time to go produce.”
The Jaguars (2-10) have lost 10 games or more in nine of Shad Khan’s 10 seasons of ownership. The lone exception came during Jacksonville’s surprising AFC South title and march to the AFC championship game in 2017. It also marks the 15th time in the Jaguars’ 27-year history that it has lost 10 games or more.
Things don’t ease up next week, with a road trip to Nashville to face the Titans. Jacksonville hasn’t won there since 2013.
Jacksonville was woeful again from the outset. James Robinson lost a fumble on the Jaguars’ second offensive snap of the game. Four plays later, Sony Michel scored on a 5-yard touchdown run for a 10-0 Rams lead.
That big deficit follows a recurring theme. The Jaguars have fallen into major holes since the bye week (24-0 against Seattle; 17-0 against San Francisco; 17-0 against the Colts; 14-0 against Atlanta) and just don’t have the offense to catch back up.
“We’re all in this thing together. You’ve got a building full of people trying to right the ship, and we’re working our tails off to try to turn this thing around,” Trevor Lawrence said. “It hasn’t happened as fast as we wanted it to, but you’ve got to keep working and making progress, and I think this year we’ve made some progress, but obviously right now we’re not playing well, and that’s something we’ve got to just be honest about and move on and start playing better.”
Jacksonville played tough for a half, keeping Matthew Stafford and Co. in check, and forcing the Rams to settle for three Matt Gay field goals. But that 16-7 deficit ballooned quickly after that. Stafford got warmed up and found cracks in the Jacksonville secondary, throwing a 29-yard touchdown to Cooper Kupp and a 2-yarder to Van Jefferson less than eight minutes apart.
Lawrence was hurried and knocked around by the Rams’ ferocious pass rush and couldn’t get into a flow. He finished 16 of 28 for 145 yards passing. Robinson and Hyde combined for 48 yards on 17 carries.
“We’ve got to figure it out,” Lawrence said. “Obviously if we knew the answer we’d be doing it, but got to keep plugging away, go back to work this week.”
Jacksonville’s offense continues to show nothing.
In the six games since their bye week, the Jaguars have rushed for four touchdowns. Lawrence has thrown just two touchdowns in that six-game span, a garbage-timer against the Seahawks and one against the Falcons when the team was down 21-3. Jacksonville’s lone win in that span was a 9-6 stunner over the Bills, a game decided by defense and three field goals from Matthew Wright.
After Robinson’s first fumble, he was essentially yanked from the game for Hyde and didn’t see another offensive play called for him until 19 seconds before halftime. Hyde scored Jacksonville’s only touchdown on a 1-yard run early in the second quarter. He also lost a fumble that the Rams converted into a 1-yard touchdown pass from Stafford to Odell Beckham Jr.
“I mean, it’s been, what, three games back to back where I feel like we haven’t had too much of an opportunity to kind of do anything,” said defensive end Dawuane Smoot. “We kind of spotted them 14 points early, the last two games, 10 points this game. It’s been tough. We’re just trying to rally and come back, come back Monday, Tuesday, and just try to turn this thing around.”