JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jaguars are lugging a losing streak and a growing list of questions to London.
In a game that ranks as perhaps the most embarrassing in Doug Pederson’s tenure, the Texans dominated the Jaguars from open to close in a 37-17 blowout at EverBank Stadium on Sunday. It was Houston’s sixth straight win in Jacksonville and one of the most listless performances in franchise history.
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For a team that opened the season viewed as a lock to win the AFC South, the Jaguars were embarrassed by a rookie quarterback and head coach, and a team missing eight starters due to injury.
The Jaguars (1-2) have significant worries as they prepare to head to London for two weeks. The offense remains inconsistent at its peak and inept at its worst. Special teams were a mess against Houston, including an 85-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by a 255-pound fullback, a blocked and a missed field goal.
Sunday’s showing was so disheartening because the Texans seemed ripe for a blowout. Among the eight players out for Houston were four starters on the offensive line, including star left tackle Laremy Tunsil. The secondary was filled with backups, too.
That should have meant a cure for the offensive struggles and a tough day for rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud.
Instead, Stroud dissected Jacksonville’s defense, while Trevor Lawrence and Co. turned in another performance that dials up the heat on Pederson and the staff.
So many things need to be fixed, where do the Jaguars start?
Jacksonville heads to London this week for a home game against the Falcons, followed by a Week 5 away game against the Bills. Pederson and the Jaguars need to find some type of answers — and quickly — for the growing offensive struggles.
They’ve officially become a problem.
Offensive coordinator Press Taylor took over full-time playcalling duties this season and Jacksonville has yet to put a consistent game together on that side of the ball.
It took a fourth-quarter comeback to beat the rebuilding Colts in the opener and Jacksonville mustered just three Brandon McManus field goals against Kansas City in Week 2. Against the winless Texans, McManus missed one field and had another blocked in the first half as the Jaguars sunk into a 17-0 hole. When asked if Jacksonville believed too much of the offseason talk about how good it was going to be, Pederson didn’t exactly shoot that down.
“I think that’s real. I do. I think that’s real. I’ve been around this game too long to know that you can’t live in the past or you’re going to fail in the future,” Pederson said. “We just got to focus one day at a time. We got to get better each day and can’t worry about next week or the week after.”
What is certain entering Week 4 is if Jacksonville doesn’t clean things up and fix the issues that are stacking up — anemic offense, no pass rush, special team lapses — a season that began with Super-sized expectations stands a chance of ending up like the disastrous 2018 campaign. The Jaguars won the AFC South in 2017 and were one Tom Brady rally away from reaching the Super Bowl. The following year included massive expectations and an even greater letdown. Jacksonville started 3-1 but stumbled to a 5-11 finish.
Struggles continue
Taylor and Pederson will continue to face scrutiny as the offense flounders. Calvin Ridley struggled mightily against the depleted Texans secondary, dropping a sure-thing touchdown on a second-down play on the opening drive. McManus pushed a 48-yard field goal wide right, an ominous sign of things to come.
“And the way we played today, we just can’t expect to win playing that way. There just has to be some good, there has to be a sense of urgency. It’s just not okay to make the same mistakes that we’ve been making, to do — to have the dumb penalties, to have the bad plays, to throw a pick, you know, late in the game like I did that, just to do stuff like that, it’s not all right,” Lawrence said. “We have to look in the mirror, take accountability, you know, take that and own it and move on.”
The problems didn’t end there. McManus had a 51-yard field goal blocked by rookie Will Anderson. Both of those miscues led to Houston points.
The Texans responded after McManus’ missed field goal with a nifty scoring drive. The big play was a 46-yard pass from CJ Stroud to Tank Dell that went down to the Jaguars 2. Dameon Pierce scored two plays later for a 7-0 lead.
After the blocked field goal, Stroud tossed a 4-yard touchdown to Brevin Jordan to put Houston up 14-0. Stroud looked like an NFL veteran and not a rookie. He finish 20 of 30 for 280 yards and threw a 68-yard touchdown to rookie Dell. The defensive issues surfaced, too. The pass rush problem continues to linger. Despite teams sacking Stroud 11 times in two games, Jacksonville didn’t record a sack and seldom even made him uncomfortable in the pocket.
Ridley had two huge drops and was called for two false starts. He was seldom looked at by Lawrence in the second half. The offensive line lost rookie right tackle Anton Harrison to an ankle injury in the third quarter.
One drive after Lawrence threw an interception late in the third quarter, he tossed a 26-yard touchdown to Christian Kirk to make the stat line respectable. Lawrence was pulled for C.J. Beathard late in the fourth quarter. He finished 27 of 40 for 279 yards, a touchdown and an interception. Evan Engram had 67 yards on seven catches to lead Jacksonville. Travis Etienne was a bright spot (19 carries, 88 yards).
“Today was unacceptable,” Engram said. “We talked about it, we know. We know what we got to do, it’s that simple.”
So many problems
Jacksonville didn’t take advantage of the list of Houston injuries. Lawrence and the offense faced a secondary filled with backups and still needed help to find the end zone. A third-and-13 pass to Ridley in the end zone wasn’t close to being complete, but it drew a pass interference call. That gave Jacksonville the ball at the 1.
Tank Bigsby barreled in for his first NFL touchdown to cut the deficit to 17-7 early in the third quarter, and cut that to 17-10 on the following drive on a 33-yard McManus field goal. What followed was an embarrassing, ESPN-worthy gaffe on the ensuing kickoff. McManus’ kickoff went to the up man on the return team, fullback Andrew Beck.
He bobbled and dropped the ball, picked it back up and took it 85 yards for a backbreaking touchdown. On a day where there were no shortages of woeful plays by Jacksonville, Beck’s touchdown headlined the lowlights. According to NFL Research, Beck, at 255 pounds, is the heaviest person to have a kick return for a touchdown in league history.
“Missed tackles. I mean, just those type of things are unacceptable,” Pederson said. “I mean, you know, it was a great kick, whatever we wanted it to be. The ball was on the ground. Just poor execution. We couldn’t get them on the ground. Great play by them, just failed execution.”