JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Believe in them now?
In Jacksonville’s biggest home game in years, it capped a stunning comeback with a pick-six by Rayshawn Jenkins in overtime to beat the Cowboys 40-34 in front of a packed house at TIAA Bank Field on Sunday.
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One week after ending a nine-game losing streak to the Titans in Nashville, the Jaguars pulled off another stunner against Dallas, ending a 20-game losing streak to NFC teams and keeping Jacksonville firmly in the playoff race. Not only have the Jaguars recovered from a 2-6 start, they now control their own playoff destiny.
It took another heroic effort from Trevor Lawrence, a career day from Zay Jones and Jenkins’ 52-yard interception return for a touchdown to give the Jaguars one of their unlikeliest wins in years. They’ll head to New York on Thursday to face the Jets, travel to the Texans on Jan. 1 and then wrap things up at home a week later against Tennessee. Winning out would give Jacksonville the AFC South title in Doug Pederson’s first season. With the Titans (7-7) losing to the Chargers on Sunday, the Jaguars are likely to face Tennessee in Week 18 for the division crown.
“Just happy for the guys, man. They never gave up. We talked about it last night at the hotel. We talked about it again today. We just kept chipping away against a really good football team,” Pederson said. “That’s a well-coached unit. They’re obviously one of the top teams in the league. But this win today, I think, kind of just gives our guys confidence in who they are as a team.”
It didn’t seem possible. Not against the Cowboys (10-4), who entered on a five-game winning streak and needed just another win to punch their playoff ticket.
Down 17 in the third quarter and listless on both sides of the ball, Lawrence energized the Jaguars in the final quarter and a delivered another franchise quarterback type of performance.
He led a textbook game-tying drive, taking Jacksonville 41 yards in 56 seconds to set Riley Patterson up for a 48-yard field goal to knot things up as time expired.
“I do think it feels good to win a game like this. A big game, national game, like you said, against a great team. It feels good just to show who we are. You can’t lie; that feels good to show people that,” Lawrence said. “But it doesn’t change anything about us. We’re the same group. We lost five games straight in October and everyone wrote us off.
“If you listen to what people say, you’re not really in a good spot. It’s the same group and we’ve just stuck together. It’s been fun. Right here, three games left, we’ve got a little run we’ve got to make, and we’ve said that the last couple weeks, and we’ve stepped up to the challenge. We’ve got to do it again on a short week. This one is short-lived. We’ve got to flush it by the morning and get ready for the Jets.”
They couldn’t keep that momentum on offense in overtime, but it didn’t matter.
Jacksonville went three and out, punted it away and watched as the Cowboys took their time. It should have been an easy drive to kick a winning field goal, but Prescott’s third-down pass to Noah Brown was bobbled and bounced into the hands of Jenkins.
He zig zagged his way in front of a wall of blockers to the end zone, setting up a thunderous celebration at TIAA Bank Field and keeping a team that started the season with so many missed opportunities firmly in the AFC South race in the final weeks of the season.
Unbelievable.
“Our season could have gone sideways three, four weeks ago, and the guys weren’t going to let that happen,” Pederson said. “I don’t get caught up in all the storylines and all that, the shoulda-coulda-wouldas. It’s just a matter of those guys in that dressing room believing in themselves and getting the job done.”
Lawrence finished 27 of 42 passing for 318 yards, four touchdowns and an interception. Zay Jones had six catches for 109 yards and a career-high three touchdowns. Jenkins had two picks of Prescott and finished with a stat line that ranks among the best of a Jaguars defensive player in franchise history. In addition to his game-sealing pick-six, Jenkins had a team-high 18 tackles.
To even be in the position to force overtime or sneak out with a win took numerous clutch plays in the final minutes, notably a massive stop by the Jacksonville defense.
With Lawrence leading a potential tying or go-ahead drive late in regulation, he escaped a sack, tucked it and ran. What should have been an 11-yard gain and ideal field position wound up with Lawrence losing a fumble at the end of the run. Dallas recovered it with 1:38 to go. That should have been the ballgame and a valiant effort but a crushing loss. But the defense, torched much of the first half, managed to force a three and out. That set the table for Patterson’s 48-yarder tie it.
“That’s exactly the message we had on the sideline [after the fumble],” Pederson said. “There are three timeouts, still a lot of time, we get the ball back with just under a minute to go and a chance to go tie the football game.”
Getting to that point didn’t seem realistic with how poorly Jacksonville played in the opening half.
The Jaguars erased a 17-point deficit late in the third and early fourth quarter with three touchdowns in a 10-minute span. They grabbed a 31-27 lead on Lawrence’s third touchdown pass to Zay Jones with 10:07 to play, a stunning blitz considering how lethargic Jacksonville looked for two-and-a-half quarters of football.
Prescott didn’t relent. He countered Lawrence by marching 75 yards in 13 plays and throwing a 13-yard touchdown to Noah Brown with 3:07 to play to go back up 34-31. Lawrence calmly responded and had the Jaguars marching down the field. His 11-yard run put Jacksonville in field goal range with plenty of time left but the fumble ended that opportunity and all but ensured a heartbreaking loss. But Jacksonville held Dallas on downs and the Cowboys had to punt it away to give Lawrence one more chance.
“The belief has always been there. Trevor has done a great job of just running the show, running the team, doing what he’s capable of doing. Just so happy for him, but really for the whole team,” Pederson said. “The guys are starting to believe in themselves, too, and that’s important down the stretch. Just a tremendous win by everybody, all three phases had a hand in it.”
The Jaguars hadn’t beaten an out-of-conference opponent since topping the Giants 20-15 in the 2018 season opener and had tight defeats to the Commanders, Eagles and Giants this season.
The Jaguars (6-8) needed to play perfect to have a shot at cooling off Dallas and didn’t look up to the challenge early. There was no forceful defense like a week ago against the Titans. There was no sizzling performance by Lawrence, who looked off early.
The defense struggled to slow down Prescott, who hit 15 of 16 pass attempts in the opening half and had scoring throws to Peyton Hendershot and Noah Brown, the latter putting Dallas in front 21-7 with two minutes to play before halftime.
Things started off poorly.
The Jaguars forced a punt on the opening drive and started out well with their own drive. Travis Etienne’s second lost fumble in three games killed that near midfield and Dallas punched in a 10-yard scoring run on a lunge across the goal line from Ezekiel Elliott to get on the board.
Lawrence, who was the AFC Offensive Player of the Week after a four-touchdown showing against Tennessee, struggled against a ferocious Dallas defense much of the game until finding a rhythm late in the third quarter. Lawrence’s streak of no interceptions ended at 204 on a pick by DaRon Bland, a play that led to a 53-yard field goal by Brett Maher. That put Dallas up 27-10 with 5:26 to play in the third.
At that point, Jacksonville looked on the verge of imploding like it did against Detroit.
Instead, it ignited Lawrence.
He came back firing, hitting Zay Jones on a 59-yard touchdown three plays later, then hit Marvin Jones for a 10-yard strike just over two minutes later. Wedged in between those two scoring plays was a diving interception by Rayshawn Jenkins on Jacksonville’s best defensive play of the afternoon. He tossed the go-ahead score to Zay Jones on a 3-yard play with 10:07 to go for Jacksonville’s first lead of the game.
“People spend their hard-earned money to come watch up play, to travel to watch us play. Just to see the fans be able to enjoy the wins with us, too, when we’re able to do what we did today, it’s special,” Lawrence said. “Like you said, there’s kids, there’s adults, everybody is really hanging their hat on what we do on Sunday. That’s a pretty cool position to be in, and it’s great when you can do something like we did today and be able to just to give them a little bit of joy, so it’s awesome.”